


A Battle of Blood and Gold

by theviolentdelight



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Earn Your Happy Ending, F/M, Fix It Fic, Gen, Multi, Pining, Political Drama, Slow Burn, battle tactics, from the scene where Jon drops the huge spoiler onwards, i don't believe in blink and everything is okay, post 8x04, the tudor nut in me is all about marriage alliances, there will be smut, this will be a long burn for some
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2020-09-29 18:20:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 46,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20440397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolentdelight/pseuds/theviolentdelight
Summary: Jon Snow's heritage finally revealed to his family the Starks plot to protect their brother as he leaves to fight the Last War. Daenerys begins her journey to the throne she has longed for and was promised. Cersei Lannister prepares to do whatever she must to maintain the throne and win against those who would take what she has worked so long to keep.Post the Jon reveal in 8x04. Cause where we are going we don't need that nonsense.





	1. A Time For Wolves

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize I took this down for a bit to fix some things and now I'm reposting. I have finished most of the rest of it and am currently going through it all over again to make sure the story is tighter. Thank you for those who have read and were wondering where The Cold Winds Blow went. Yes I am a fan of stupid long titles why do you ask? ;p I know the second arc of a Storm of Swords was Blood and Gold but that was more of what was going on with the Lannisters while this is encompassing a whole larger spectrum and it plays a bit more into the old gods and the new.

Jon Snow left them in the quiet of the Godswood as the depth of the Stark family secret set in. The whisper of Lord Eddard Stark carried with them in their blood and in the leaves. How many times had the Stark Lord father come here to pray about the safety of this child?

"He is going to get himself killed," Arya broke the silence.

"The dragon knows he was to tell us," Bran's voice sounds ever far off in the distance.

"She'll kill him." Sansa draws their eyes to her. The woman with the hair that matches the Godwood's leaves is not the spit of the girl she used to be. She stands proud in the heart of her home. "The south is never good for Stark men."

"He may be half dragon but he's still ours." Arya moved closer, her hands clasped tight in front of her. He had always been her brother. Blood and dragons would never change it now.

"Then what are we to do about it?" Sansa eyed Arya's hands and past them to the dagger that her sister had been given in this very spot.

"She loves him." Bran looked at the empty space where Jon had stood before.

"Seven hells," Arya groaned.

"She loves the throne more." Sansa turned back to the tree with the crying face. "She positioned Gendry for his favor. She raised a toast for the North. She ignores any advice that is not to her liking. " If Sansa had seen the crestfallen face at the mention of the Smith she didn't show it. "She's his aunt."

"The dragons have always kept to each other." Bran recited. "Not always… Baelor locked his sisters in a sept."

"Jon is not like them." Arya interrupted. "But we don't know- her. She might-"

"What does a dragon eat?" Bran asked watching their expressions curious as he could be now.

"Whatever it wants." Sansa echoed. "We must ensure that it doesn't. If she doesn't betray our brother then there is nothing to fear."

"What are you hatching, Sansa?" Arya got her sister's attention. "He swore us not to tell..."

"Father swore the same, and look where it got us. What is an honor to the dead? What is an honor if it gets our family killed by the dragons or the lions? We are Starks of Winterfell. This is our home." Sansa growled. "He is ours."

"The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives." It almost sounded like their father spoke through Bran, the way he would say it, the tone it would mean.

"Then we don't let him be alone." Arya nods. "Words can cut deeper than swords…"

"To the right person," Sansa smirked.

"You are going to play the game." Arya grinned in return.

"Our father was a good man, we'll keep our honor by defending our family. We'll protect the north from those who would wish to harm it." Sansa looked at her sister. "Do you know what to do?"

"Stick 'em with the pointy end," Arya said, her hand tightening around her own dagger. "I'll leave after the Queen's retinue and while the north men prepare. I'm quiet. Jon won't notice after our partings today. Keep the Knight woman with you, Lady Stark. She won't let anything happen to you."

"I will." Sansa nods. "I don't trust the dragon queen or her men. I trust Cersei even less. I worry what they might be walking into."

"So who will we whisper to?" Arya asks.

"Leave that to me." Sansa turned towards Winterfell. "You managed to escape the Red Keep… Arya, your list…"

"I can finish it." Arya's eyes become vacant as they both imagined a lion down south. "They'll never see me."

"Keep him safe, and if you do execute Cersei…"

"I'll sing you some songs about it." Arya looked back at her with the same fervor. " I might not come back."

"You are the bravest person I know… if anyone could survive…" Sansa reached for her sister's hand.

"No," Arya quickly brushed it aside and straightened her cloak. "For me."

"Where would you go?" Sansa asks.

"Riverlands or the Stormlands." Arya shrugged. " Maybe get a boat that goes West."

"She's hunting a stag." Bran looked at the two of them. "Or a wolf. Or a face."

"And what will you do, Bran?" Arya walked to her brother, eyeing him as the stranger he is now.

"My role here is not done… I suppose I will help Sansa." Bran searched his sister's eyes. "I'll still see you."

Arya swallowed throwing her body on her brother, wrapping him in a hug. His arms don't move, as he doesn't change, or say anything, it is like it was the first time in the same place. There are no more secrets between the two of them. " Maybe I'll go to the wall just to throw you off."

"Maybe you will," He tried to smile, but it is as unnerving as his eyes. "I have many faces."

Something in his words cause Arya to stumble back almost into her sister. "I'll keep him safe." She turns to Sansa. "Don't die Lady Stark." She grins, playing it off.

"You are still strange." Sansa smiles.

"Sansa… Arya…" They turned to Bran as a few leaves of the tree fell with the wind. "When you play the game of thrones… you win or you die."


	2. Nightshade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cersei plans to defend King's Landing. Daenerys arrives at Dragonstone to an unexpected visitor. The army of the North marches south and Jon takes a detour for answers.

There was a raven from the North that flew into Qyburn's hands. A little bird he had stolen from both Varys and Petyr when had not the mind to see him. His little birds spread through capital and as far as the wall. They were the children that slipped unnoticed and begging to be fed as he held their strings, their webs, their tales and he wove them together. There were tales of monsters and dragons that reached down to the ears of the Queen. Cersei Lannister sipped her wine, starring out the window in front of her. Her hand over her belly as listened to the sound of her people below as they built the new weaponry and knew she had chosen wisely.

"The Citadel has also received word that the White Walkers have fallen." Qyburn walked up quietly next to her. "As well as the spiders and the birds from the north."

"Good. You plucked their kind well." Cersei smiled to herself. Her plan had worked as she had anticipated. Let the dead up in the north deal with themselves while she ruled. "The numbers should be depleted."

"And the Targaryen troops are already on the move, my queen." Qyburn came ready for anything she had to worry about. "Half their Dothraki unit died in the first assault, the unsullied… they may be a thing to worry about… but-"

"Are the dragons still alive?" She turned to him with her goblet in hand.

"Both are still alive, although reports say one is worse for wear," Qyburn answered immediately and succinctly. If only Tywin had a man such as him in his command. "Injuries no doubt… one little bird says the green beast has trouble flying."

"Pity," she raised the red donnish wine to her lips, "see that they both do not remain that way."

"Of course your grace." He bowed reverently.

"The scorpions on the walls of the keep… How is construction going?" She turned back to her window looking out at the men toiling away.

"The rest of the Scorpions should be finished around the city in a fortnight. The Golden company will be stationed inside the city as we discussed." Qyburn explained. "The citizens are being ushered into the keep. Come, my lady, we shall show you the map."

Cersei followed him into the map she had painted on the floor. The map of all that was hers, and all that she worked for. It was a map of all that her children and father died for. It was a legacy of lions. Qyburn had taken the time to add tokens to show her where everything was like she hadn't known already. There were tokens each representing their houses. There were the Krakens in the sea, the lions in the keep, and the golden coins for the company she had bought with the blood of traitors. There were wolves in the north and dragons to the east. She sipped her wine, it tasted bitter.

Closing her eyes she thought of Jaimie and how he might see this map, and then she thought of father and chose to do better. "They will come at us from the sea and sky." Cersei pointed at Blackwater Bay. "We may have eliminated their fleet and prevented them from gaining the Dornish army… but they no doubt have ravens on their way as we speak. We must be smart. That Greyjoy bitch…"

"The birds place Yara Greyjoy on her way to the Iron Islands," Qyburn said smugly. "Not in any place to protect or get back here in time to protect her usurper queen."

"Does he know?" Cersei looked up at her trusted advisor.

Qyburn gave her a soft smile and she knew it as false as her caring for the irritating pirate. When this was done and over she would dispose of him, perhaps in a similar way she did Lancel. " No, your grace, I hadn't the heart to tell him."

"Good, we must have him focused on the fight ahead." Cersei looked at the map of Blackwater bay and up the water towards Dragonstone. "And the other thing we discussed?"

"Yes, my queen." Qyburn bowed reverently, "you have my absolute faith and loyalty. By the Gods, I swear it."

Cersei sipped her wine. Thinking of her brother lost in the north perhaps if he had heeded her advice he'd still be here. She ran a hand along her velvet gown to her belly. "Shall we speak more to your… little birds?"

"Of course, my queen." Qyburn grinned.

* * *

The Kingsroad hadn't changed much since the dead came and went. It was almost as familiar to her as Winterfell had become. The stones had changed but the journey was different. She saw the man in front of her, larger and angry. His face covered with the same scars she had grown accustomed too. He grumbled as she saddled up her horse beside him.

"Thought you would have stayed in Winterfell." He grumbled from exhaustion or the night of drinking. The castle had become a place of celebration even as the men mounted up and prepared to march on King's Landing.

"Thought you knew when to shut up," she countered.

"Thought you might stay for that starry-eyed cunt." Sandor laughed as he turned to her while she looked at him, schooling her face in an unreadable mask. "Take it he wasn't a good ride the second time."

"Shut up." Arya threatened him.

"Or too good a one?" Sandor laughed so hard it started wheezing. "Seven hells, the little wolf got herself right all fucked."

"He wanted to marry me." She said softly. "He wanted a lady."

"Saw what the dragon queen did. Bastard boy doesn't even know his letters only a hammer." Clegane didn't even look at her, as if he knew her own shame. The one that reflected in the lot of them.

"He'll be a good lord," Arya responded looking at the horizon. She thought of what was to come, what she was, and the pointed weapon she'll always be.

"Aye," Sandor looked at her, eyeing her clothes and her face. "I don't intend to come back."

"I don't either." She replied evenly.

"Don't get between me and that one name, hear me, wolf girl? Been with you long enough to recite that damn thing from memory." Sandor urged his mount forward.

"As long as you don't get between me and the queen," Arya said evenly.

"You'll leave me to die again, won't you?" Sandor drew her attention to him once more.

"Probably." Arya gave him a small smile and the older man laughed as they slowly headed further down the king's road.

* * *

The boat rocked back and forth, despite all their traveling Tyrion's belly always rolled with the waves. He almost preferred to be in that damn box like he was the first time he traveled over the seas. Pouring another glass of wine in the ship he turned towards his companion who eyed him impassively. Varys always was keen on him and one of the few who had seen his worth. "What?" Tyrion scowled at the science. "Would you like..?" He turned around to find an additional goblet.

"I must relent, my dear friend, wine has never agreed with me." Varys looked back out at the sea. "I wonder how long it will be until our Queen realizes you played right into the Stark girl's hand."

"You must think me daft if you don't think I've considered it." He plopped down in his chair while the chip gave another strong lurch.

"How many know?" Varys asked looking at the ground.

"Eight people." Tyrion rolled his finger on the rim of his goblet.

"Then it's just information now." Varys moved towards the window.

"It's the Stark Children, Daenerys, and us." Tyrion looked up at him. "They would never turn on their own."

"But they would go to great lengths to defend them. Daenerys wants all seven kingdoms united under her rule, and the Lady Stark has clearly made her desire for independence known and with Jon on the throne they might just get it." Varys sighed. "With the youngest girl the slayer of the Night…"

"And Bran the three-eyed raven," Tyrion added.

"If his parentage becomes common knowledge the small folk may gather around them." Varys sat down next to him. "They are living legends."

"I believe in our Queen." Tyrion insisted. "She fought as they did. She brought dragons back into the world."

"And the North still turns towards its own. It always has." Varys sighed. "He is a threat to her legitimacy."

"She loves him," Tyrion interjected.

"She is his aunt. The Stark men are many things but while his blood and rank may dictate otherwise… he is still a Stark. The honor of Ned Stark runs in his veins… a marriage between the two would be impossible now." Varys looked out the window. Tyrion pondered all the different threads the spider had.

"You think highly of dear dead Ned?" Tyrion eyed him.

"He was too honorable a man to live in our game. Honorable men never do well." Varys took the glass and took a small sip. "I doubt his Nephew would be that naive. He is a good man… I'm not sure he would be a good king. Not for any lack of trying... After that meeting, he is easily bent towards the will of others."

"We have a good queen." Tyrion insisted. "And she has not been bent."

"But we have not been good at abetting her temper." Varys looked at him.

"You are still angry about the Taryls?" Tyrion was exasperated.

"The last time a Targaryen burnt a father and son alive they were Stark men. The Arryn's called their banners and the realm bled for it. The Taryls were an up jumped house who did not have love in the reach…" Varys rolled his eyes. "With the proper council Jon-"

"She is NOT her father." Tyrion insisted. "And they were not the Starks. They had already betrayed high garden. Some shall see that she made the right choice."

"Of that, we shall see," Varys placed the goblet back towards the hands of Tyrion. "I will always put the needs of the realm ahead of those who seek to own it. I hope you are right. I truly do."

"Be careful, friend," Tyrion sighed and downed the last gulp of his wine. "Remember what she said."

"If I am to betray her I promised I would stab from the front… and I intend to keep that promise. Pray, tell me that you don't think I might not have to." Varys held his eyes. "I've known many kings and queens. Before you were even born… the grandeur she is aspiring too... I believed in her…"

"I BELIEVE in her. Varys. Like I've never believed in thousands of men. Or even my sister." Tyrion pleaded.

"You hate your sister." Varys countered.

"Of that, we are both certain." Tyrion heard the hollowness of his own laughter.

"I trust you, my friend, but if I have to put the needs of the realm ahead of her… know that I will do so without a second thought of my own safety. The smallfolk must have a voice." Varys implored.

"How are you to be their voice in your robes of silk? At the council of what could be the best queen we've ever known?" Tyrion shot back.

"Because I have known what it is like to be at the mercy of others, to not have their harvest come to fruit with a leader who does not care. You were too young to see the pain of King Aerys throughout this realm. And I pray you never do," and with that Varys knocked the rest of Tyrion's wine on the table before them. He watched as the drips of the Dornish liquid traveled down the side of the table and onto the floor.

* * *

They are not far enough away to hear the sound of the Dragons as they left Winterfell. Arya and the Hound watched as the beasts clawed at the sky in the distance. "Doesn't look like there is a rider on the second one." Sandor pointed out.

"Don't think the Dragon Queen enjoys sharing her children." Arya watched the beast with similar fear and awe she did when they first arrived. She had seen Jon and Dany ride them. They were magnificent and magical and it made her long for Nymeria.

"Picked that up during the feast. Reminds me of when people would throw themselves all over…" Sandor stopped. "Jaimie fucking Lannister."

Arya followed where the Hound looked and before them, there was a dark-cloaked man, his hand glinting in the cold light of day. He was wrapped in rags trying to control the northern horse he no doubt stole. "Thought he was going to stay with the big woman."

"No. He'd always go for Cersei." Sandor breathed quietly.

"Maybe we use him as bait?" Arya smiled thinking of what would hurt her. She knew how much the queen had cared for her brother.

"A vicious bitch you are." Sandor laughed. "Kingslayer!"

Jaimie's hair was shaggier then she last saw him. They had been a week on the road. The horse before them looked as if it had been ridden hard and fast. The poor animal was tired of bearing whatever weight chased Jaimie Lannister from Winterfell. She bit her lips hoping it was from the wrath of her sister. Even if Sansa never actually killed Joffrey it was that sweet taste of revenge and satisfaction the fueled her now.

The golden-haired ass turned to look at them on his horse. There was a fear that quickly went through his eyes. She remembered a look before her victims. He might of thought she might kill him right there. Jaimie must have heard about her bravery, no doubt at least her kill of the night king. She was as swift as the wind. She had used all her training to kill that frozen king with a quick stab through the belly. Jaimie was just a man. He was all the warm bloody bits, and she would do what she must.

"Oh, great," Jaimie grumbled seeing the two of them. "I intended to travel this road alone."

"Where might you be heading, you asshole?" Sandor asked pulling his horse up near Jaimie's.

"Assume we might be heading the same way." Jaimie shrugged. "Maybe I'm heading to Essos and Braavos to take up with all those painted whores while you all kill each other over this."

"I doubt it," Arya replied, her lips turning up in a smile. He was not good at the game of lies.

"Might need an escort right to Dragonstone then? The Queen might want her hands on you after Lady Stark saved your life. After that big woman stood up for you. Thousands of miles of those who stood for you." Sandor laughed. "We might get a reward. Without a Stark bitch to vouch for you."

"And thousands of miles and yet I run into a missing Stark girl and the Hound." If the words of the Hound had bothered the knight he didn't let it on, shrugged it off. "I have a business of my own towards the capital."

"Towards your sister?" Sandor eyed the man.

Jaimie held his lips tight. "Just as you go for your brother?"

"Hah." Sandor laughed. "Stabbing her with your prick again, Lannister?"

"Perhaps," Jaimie looked ahead.

There was something in him that didn't seem quite right. Arya couldn't put her finger on it. It was something so familiar. Something that stirred under her breast when she slept. "Your horse is tired. Lannister." Arya said. "We will be bunking down shortly."

"How will I be sure you won't kill me?" Jaimie looked at her.

"I don't know why you left but Brienne trusted you... So shall I." She said simply dismounting her horse and rolling out her pack.

"What if I am a bad man that betrayed her?"Jaimie eyed them.

"You best hope we don't find out then," Arya dismounted her horse. "I'll defend her and whatever is left is up to him," Sandor grunted at Jaimie.

"What if I try to kill you in your sleep?" The Lannister man looked at the two of them.

"You won't get the chance." Arya howled.

* * *

Dragonstone was in the distance. It looked smaller than Daenerys had remembered it. The strong stones standing tall against the beaches and the waves. Perhaps it had always been waiting for her. She was Stormborn. She was born amongst sea and salt. It needed her as she needed it. She remembered the feel to of the sand in her hands. The salt in her mouth. This was where she had been born.

The kingsguard had escorted the ships back to the place she was born. She wondered what the storm was like when Rhaella Targaryen gave birth. Did the waves crash against the rocks as they did at night now? Did the winds howl and blow through the keep? Had her mother screamed as she brought the last real Dragon into the world? There was no storm now but the waves beat against the rocks just the same as she landed Dragon near the edge of the keep. Rhaegar followed her lead. She had noticed him looking back towards the west. Towards someone who should have been willing to follow her after that night in the boat. He looked at her as Drogo had. As Daario had. She knew a look of love when she saw it. She had seen it in Jorah up until it was snuffed out.

Jon had asked for Rhaegal during the North's journey. She denied him as he had her. Rhaegal was her son. He did not get to take what is hers.

Daenerys saw her men on the Dothraki and Unsullied she had left to man the castle watched as she approached bowing their heads in reverence to their Queen.

Kovarro approached her. He had been with her since the gates of Quarth when she was so uncertain of her destiny. "We have held the castle," he said in Dothraki. "There have been ships seen in the distance but they have not approached us. They fear us."

"Or they are being cautious. One doesn't approach a Dragon unless it has a plan." She nodded at him. "Our supplies?"

"Replenished from the local towns," Kovarro replied.

"Did they disagree?" She looked at him.

"They were not given the chance." Kovarro grinned.

"You know what I asked." Daenerys looked at the man before her, his blade sharp. She was a dragon and he best knows her place.

"They fought us. They lost." He shrugged it off. "We sent men to man the farms and bring in grain."

Daenerys nodded. "Were there children?"

"No."Kovarro held her eyes and she knew what she asked was true.

"Good. And do not let me ever find out there were." She growled at him. "We will not rule the ashes. Make sure the troops that are coming to port are given a proper supper before we ship out towards King's Landing. We have the last war."

"We will rip your enemies from their houses made of stone." He saluted her and went back towards his men.

If Daenerys closed her eyes she could still feel the Dothraki sea, the feel of Khal Drogo on her skin, inside her, or how her body rippled with life. She pushed it down. There was a war ahead and she could not be a fanciful child. She could not compare her sun and stars to the northern man… a family who had bewitched her. She felt Jon under her skin, insider her in a way only her previous beloved had. How he could ignore this calling, this fire she would never understand. Theirs was a song of destiny, she thought to herself, he was the snow she needed on the throne. She breathed the cold sea air, imagining the house of the undying and what it showed her there. It was snow on a throne and in her mind, she smelled roses.

Daenerys watched as the ships that had bore who troops and entourage disembarked. The dragons behind her screaming and begging to be fed. She nodded to her local guards to bring them sheep and a feast. They had saved them from the night and they deserved their fill as the people she loved and fought for filed out of each ship.

Overlooking the cliff to where the last of the ships docked she watched as her advisor disembarked. Missandei and Grey Worm almost shoulder to shoulder. Tyrion trudged behind them at his own pace as the spider followed behind them. There was something in him that seemed different. She did not know if he had seen her watching.

For a moment she wondered about the madness of her father and those who were around to stop it

* * *

Horses and men followed as the northern army marched south. Jon rode at the head with Davos at his side. Gendry had accompanied faster than he had asked seemed keen to get away from the north. "Weather doesn't agree with you, Lord Baratheon?" Davos asked the man.

"I don't mind it." He shrugged not wanting to continue the conversation.

"The last time the northern army marched south it was with Robb Stark." Jon turned to Davos.

"Aye, so it was." The old onion knight nodded.

"Now we follow to fight the Lannisters." Jon led his horse forward listening to the men behind them. "The Wildlings will follow with us to the crossing and then they'll head north to mend the castles, build some new lives."

The giant white wolf snuck up next to Jon and padded along beside him. The beast had grown so in the last few years, the ever-comforting silent white shadow at his side except when he went south. "You'll be with us, right boy?" Jon leaned over slightly to pat the dire wolf who gave him a silent whine.

"I don't know how often a man of the night's watch hears stories from down in the Riverlands… suppose the be a dire wolf run wild with its own pack." Davos grinned.

"Yea… those stories from around the Inn at the Crossroads." Gendry added. "Big grey wolf. Mean thing if you get between it and a kill."

"What color coat?" Jon immediately turned to them taken back as he thought about the two wolf sisters of his own Ghost that were lost years ago.

"I don't know, Stark, just stories I suppose. Heard stories 'bout it on the road here and to the north." Gendry shrugged.

"Why would there be a Direwolf in the Riverlands lord snow?"

A small smile reached Jon lips, thinking of the wild girl he didn't see when he left. "My sister, Arya," Gendry's eyes snapped up to Jon's. Something familiar and aching in them. "When she went south with my father… with Lord Eddard Stark both her and Sansa brought their wolves with them. Sansa's was named Lady a kind and gentle creature. She would weave ribbons around hers but they were inseparable. Arya's… was Nymeria. Just as willful and wild."

"Your father let you keep dire wolves?" Davos grinned. "I would barely let my son on a ship at their age."

"I convinced him. Said the Stark Children were meant to have them. I wonder if its Nymeria running around the Riverlands probably terrorizing anyone that looks at them funny." Jon smiled thinking of the last time he saw the creature.

"What happened to them? I didn't see any other wolves at the castle." Gendry looked ahead.

"Sansa told me in the north that Queen Cersei had Lady killed and Nymeria had fled. ShaggyDog died with Rickon. Grey Wind with Robb. Summer died in the land of always winter according to Meera Reed. All that is left is Ghost and Nymeria if it's her." Jon looked at Ghost who ran on ahead. "I don't suppose the south is good for dire wolves."

"Just like the north wasn't for dragons," Davos said idly.

Jon clenched his jaw if they had seen his hands tightening no one said anything. He thought of blood and lies and legends and songs. Of the wolves, he left behind in Winterfell.

"We'll make camp further down the road. Near here there is the bog men settlement. We lasted past the night and I have business before we head towards Dragonstone." Jon ordered.

"I don't suppose the Queen would care for the delay," Davos said warily.

"We shouldn't lose time. A day at best. She should be restocking at Dragonstone before the head forward." He sighed. "Lord Baratheon, you should accompany me as a show of good faith the men of the Reed family have always been our allies. They would welcome you now that the long night is over."

"I-I don't know what I would be to do. I've never been a lord. Only talked to them really, and even then not so much." Gendry rubbed the back of his neck.

"Aye, I only became Lord Snow because men followed me. Sansa… Sansa has always been better at this than I am."

"I was just a bastard blacksmith… and now… I just don't know." Gendry looked at the road ahead.

"I was a bastard in the night's watch." Jon grinned. "Now I'm on the same road Lord Eddard said he would tell me about my mother one day heading down the same way to fight the same people who took my family from me."

"I was a smuggler with a large family and a wife I sorely miss. I hope once all this is done and over with I can go home and live a much longer riper old age."

"How many children do you have?" Gendry looked at the smuggler.

"Too many," Davos laughed, "my eldest died in blackwater bay."

"Where is your wife?' Gendry asked.

"Cape Wrath in the Stormlands, my Lord. She peddles the wares I send her. We've kept in contact all this time. Stannis' daughter Shireen taught me to read and write… my wife was very surprised to start receiving letters but she loves them just the same. She's always with me. Your kin wasn't always the best, Lord Gendry, but once the war is all over if you ever need assistance you will know where to find me." Davos looked at the new lord.

Gendry snorted. "Lord?" He shook his head, the word sitting as uneasy as his head as it did Jon's. "I would be lucky to have your assistance, Ser."

"I wouldn't ask my advice if you want to know how to be a lord ask Lady Sansa I was King for a few turns of the moon before I just became a Lord." Jon laughed. "She might even send you drawings of proper table settings and how to greet your lords. I would have been lost without them."

"She is a good woman your sister." Davos laughed. "Both of them."

"Yeah…" Gendry said softly.

"They used to be at each other's necks. Robb confessed before King Baratheon left that during the feast that night Arya had thrown food down Sansa's dress and they used to fight all the time." Jon grinned fondly. "Now they are as thick as thieves"

"Did you hear about Lord Baelish?" Davos asked cautiously.

"Aye," Jon said softly. Sansa and he had discussed him when he returned to Winterfell. He had looked for the lost lord of the Vale. Sansa held his gaze and told him he was at the mercy of the pack. "All of this was because of him."

"That it was." Davos sighed.

"Wonder what my sisters would have been if they had never traveled this road." Jon thought of the small girl he had held in her room. When she was just nothing but ten and filled with fire instead of the cold steel. He thought of Sansa and all her manners and dreams and now she is a wolf as strong as any of them. "They aren't like they were before."

"They never are." Gendry swallowed.

"Lord Baratheon?" Davos looked at the man as he squirmed under his attention.

"I knew… I knew Arya before all this. Before she.. Became whatever she is." He looked up at Jon, his eyes quickly flitting back to the ground around him. "Nothing funny, we just… we left king's landing together heading north the king's road to the Night's watch. Meant to bring her to Winterfell."

"Arya never mentioned." Jon looked at her and wonder what else his little sister had endured. They may not be half-siblings anymore but she was fervent that he belonged to them just the same. He didn't know who he was anymore. He didn't know where his strange dreams began to take him.

"Doesn't talk much that one." Davos turned back to the road as the troops followed suit behind him.

"Used to talk all the time, follow me around like a pain my ass. Pretend she was a boy for a while." Gendry explained. "Had a little sword with her and everything."

"Needle," Jon said fondly.

"We were together until the brotherhood sold me to the red witch." Gendry rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortable at the memories.

"Glad she was gone and done with," Davos grumbled. "I was hoping to have the pleasure of that myself."

"Told her if she came back north we would execute her on sight."

"Did she put leeches on any of you?" He looked at both of them with a strange look in his eyes.

"What?" Jon looked at him. "No."

* * *

"Your grace," Tyrion walked into the throne room drawing Daenery's thoughts from the coming battle. She had been watching her children fly around the castle and play. They tossed a sheep between the two of them. She wondered if they missed Viserion as much as she did. If they felt the missing piece of them or thought they could hear the wings on the wind that meant he was to come home.

Although he would never come home. He was dead and buried in a crypt in Winterfell. Her dead son among those who fell, amongst the dead corpses. She still sees them when she closes her eyes, the claws of the dead as they reach for her, ripping her from her dragon, clawing at her hair, her life, her bones, the very fire she draws inside her.

"Yes?" She tried not to show her irritation.

"There is a ship approaching from the north," Tyrion replied.

"Jon Snow?" She said eagerly looking towards the docks.

"No, your grace, they are flying the colors of Dorne." He offered.

"Dorne? But Ellaria is?" Daenerys said, hope breaking inside her. Her ally from Dorne whom she promised vengeance lay rotting in a dungeon in King's Landing.

"Not Ellaria. They are the colors of the royalty of Dorne." Tyrion sighed.

"Royalty? But isn't Prince Doran dead? Ellaria said she couldn't stand him and killed him for his inaction before she pledged herself to us." Daenerys looked at him confused. "Who could it possibly be? The Sand Snakes are dead. My allies in the south are-"

"Your Grace," Varys walked in. "The ship from Dorne has docked."

"Tyrion?" She turned to him, the rage boiling inside her.

"I gave them permission, do not be mad at anyone but me… but My Queen.." He implored. "I know you are not familiar with all the households here in Westeros-and"

"That is because you have kept me ignorant isn't it?" She seethed.

"My queen, no, never, we thought they were dead," Tyrion said.

"I assure you, My Queen, no one has heard as much as a hair of the true heir from Dorne for years." Varys walked past Tyrion.

"True Heir of Dorne? Was it not as Ellaria promised?" Daenerys contained herself, her wrath growing, and pulsing under her skin as she listened to her advisors.

"No, Ellaria was many things but privy to Doran's machinations was never one of them," Varys said cooly. She didn't trust him. Every breath he had was full of treason of her father, treason of kings. "Oberyn died fighting the Mountain to gain vengeance for Ellia. Your good-sister. Ellaria was not a part of his plans. She didn't know of his daughter across the sea. Dorne isn't like the rest of us, your grace, a daughter can inherit as much a son."

"And why haven't you spoken of this before, spider?" Daenerys stared at the man full of secrets.

"Last we heard she had bedded down with a knight and that was as we say was that… but it turns out… Princess Arianne Martell, the true heir of Dorne.."

The doors opened and a woman walked followed by two elaborately decorated guards and two women. Their skin olive and their features striking. She had long dark hair drawn up around her face with a circlet of orange and yellow rubies. Her clothing reminded Daenerys of Ellaria's but her gowns flowed around her like a flower. The woman smiled. "Your grace, my Queen," They all bowed in unison. "I apologize for not sending a raven but we felt with the state of the seas these days that secrecy would be the most importance. I am Princess Arianne of Dorne."

"Princess Arianne?" Daenerys watched her as she woman looked towards her hand.

"It is customary when swearing fealty that one must kiss the ring of she who is to rule." Daenerys extended it and Arianne took her hand placing a kiss on the ring of a dragon. "MY queen."

"You took a ship all the way from-"

"Tyosh, your grace," She finished. "I heard the usurper Ellaria Sand has been killed and I have come to claim what is mine."

"Then why are you not in Dorne?" Daenerys looked at the woman.

"My brother, Quentyn, sits on the throne in my place to act as my proxy. He lived with me across the sea and he will rule Dorne as it should be until I return." Arianne smoothed her skirts.

"I have heard stories about the kindness of Prince Quentyn," Tyrion added. "Last I saw him he was a tiny child."

"What he lacks in looks he makes up for in kindness." She grinned, "Forgive me for this intrusion."

"What if he doesn't relent the throne?" Daenerys asked eyeing her cautiously.

"He is my brother. And that is how things are done in Dorne." Arianne grinned. "Perhaps when the War is won your grace may come to see the water gardens of Sunspear. Your brother loved them well."

"You met Rhaegar?" Daenerys face softened. There was still such a love her eldest brother carried with him even these days for any who had known him. It was the same love his son inspired wherever he went.

"I was very small, your grace, but he was very kind." Arianne bowed. "What we have to help is yours."

"Why are you so quick to join us?" Daenerys asked looking t the woman before her. "You could be rebuilding Dorne."

"Our troops are still fresh from being uninvolved, Ellaria didn't have the love Oberyn did and they knew their rightful Princess was across the sea. Doran was respected. We have never bowed easily and we never will. It took your folk 200 years to get a Martell to agree and I imagine from what I hear you are a woman of great strength." She bowed again with grace all of Dany's advisors should learn.

Arianne looked over at Varys and then Tyrion and then to her retinue behind her.

"You seek what is yours. I seek to help and be a part of what ends the Lannister dynasty." Arianne looked back at Tyrion and her eyes moved back to Daenerys. "I should thank Tyrion for killing his father. Tywin ordered the deaths of my kin. I do not seek retribution. I seek peace. Our people have worked together for hundreds of years and they shall work together again. The sun only knelt to a dragon and you are worthy of the claim."

"Good." Daenerys smiled reach out to take her hand as she did with the Kraken before. "Let's begin."


	3. Wolves At Your Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor, Jaimie, and Arya travel south. Jon speaks to Howland Reed. Yara Greyjoy reaches the Iron Islands.

At night they heard wolves howling in the distance of the Riverlands. The campfire blazing between the three of them. "Perhaps we should put that out?" Jaimie motioned to the fire before them.

"They would see the smoke, at least we'll keep warm and the beasts at bay." Sandor shrugged.

"There are also the fires from the Northmen's camp up the road." Arya returned startling him.

"I didn't stay to hear the tales, Stark, but how did you of all people kill the night king?" He leaned against the tree eyeing the small girl. She was barely bigger than he remembered her when he bothered to remember her at all. She had slipped through all their fingers in the capital after her father's death. That had been the last time he saw her. His left hand moved to the hilt of widow's wail. Jaimie wondered what the Stark girl would do if he told her the sword he bore came from Ice.

"Quietly." She shrugged. "Stuck him with the pointy end."

"Must have been some art to it. I heard you trained with Ser Brienne." He looked at her cautiously.

Sandor laughed. "With the big woman?"

"I wanted to train with her. She was the only one who beat the hound." Arya turned to Sandor with a quirk of her eyebrow.

"Brienne beat the hound?" Jaimie looked at both of them a little awestruck of the woman he had left behind him. Shame filled him at the thought of her blue eyes, how she wept, how he wishes he could be anyone else but who he was.

"And then this one left me to die," Sandor grumbled and drank from his wine sack. "Fucking hell."

Jaimie couldn't help but laugh. Sandor rolling his eyes as Arya even gave way to a genuine laugh. He didn't think he had seen her so much as smile since he arrived in Winterfell. He heard stories about her through. Something about a dalliance that the Lady of Winterfell was keeping under wraps. "And now you are?"

"They'll write songs about us The Hound and the Little Shit." Sandor gulped another mouthful. "Last time we took to the road this one wouldn't shut up and nearly got us killed."

"To be fair you kidnapped me," Arya pointed out.

"And you ran into Brienne?"

"After all my fat luck," Sandor interrupted as Arya's face became a dark unreadable facade. One he usually would hide under a joke or a demure of a jape. "Her and that idiot squire of hers. Bit my goddamn ear."

"Pity, that was one of your better features, Clegane," Jaimie smirked to himself imagining Brienne battling him and in the favor biting his ear. He swallowed to himself, thinking of the times she did that to him without the heat of battle. The last two weeks swam inside him in a bit of warmth and pain. He knew her sounds in battle, and now he knew them in another way.

"Fine, we can not talk. Fucking shits." Sandor grumbled as Arya and looked at him and then back at the road ahead. He followed her gaze as the round went ever onward down towards the place where they would all be meeting. For good or bad. This would end one way or another.

The fires of the Northmen faded far behind them as they rose just slightly before dawn. The journey ahead of them would lead them to the Inn at the Crossroads. Arya was still not sure about their guest. "We could always just feed him to the wolves around here?" Sandor had offered as they made Jaimie help set up camp. Mostly to see him fumble, part of her felt bad for the man. She wondered what it would feel like if she lost her sword hand. If she would be as swift, as deadly, as quiet with a blade.

Sun traveled on its journey in the sky as they carried on their way a silence their companion. "Kingslayer." Jaimie turned his eyes to the girl as confused by her as any of them.

"We will have to bunk down shortly, I want to fight you." She grinned. "Heard you were once a great swordsman. Heard you fought like hell on the walls of Winterfell."

"The dead aren't much in the way of battle." Jaimie sighed. "They mostly just smell rotten and run at you."

"Found them none the less, you did." Arya continued.

"Is there a point to this?" Jaimie replied annoyed. "Was she this annoying with just you?"

"Worse." Sandor shrugged. "Probably heard stories all her life of the great fucking Jaimie Lannister."

Arya hopped off her voice eloquently. Smoother than he would have noticed before. "I mean if you are scared of a little girl I can understand."

"I'm not scared of anyone," Jaimie replied smoothly. The clearing they were in would serve them well for a quick spar, "but don't you think we have more pressing matters?"

"Loser has to set up camp?" She offered.

"My gold is on the little shit." Sandor laughed stepping down.

"Fine, if I win though you best both set up camp," Jaimie rolled his eyes. "Great, I am going to fight the slayer of the night king." He removed his sword from its scabbard. "How often did Ser Brienne do this?"

"All the time." Arya swung her sword behind her back, moving as gracefully as Syrio taught her.

The kingslayer was not ready for her to move behind him like in a dance. He swung fast and with skill, but not as smooth as water.

"Why did you head this way?" She asked parrying his attack easily enough.

"Same as you. To go south." He hit her sword with his own. The face she gave him would chill his bones.

"I'm going to kill Cersei." Arya smiled at him, schooling her face to give away nothing. She saw the terror in his eyes. He would never have lasted in the house of black and white. With the training of the faceless men. He swung at her faster and she dodged just as easy, letting his blade sing past her. As she aimed her dagger at his throat. "Perhaps I shall wear your face."

"What the seven hells are you?" He was decent with his bad sword hand.

"I would have liked to fight you with your good sword hand, Kingslayer."

"Was she this creepy with you?" Jaimie stumbled.

"No, this is a new level of weird even for her." Clegane leaned against a tree.

"Perhaps I'll wait until she feels safe, that her pleas worked before I take your face off and cut her head just like she allowed Joffrey to? Do you know" She attacked him trying to sweep his legs. "I dreamed about killing him! Always on my list."

Jaimie swung his legs down and she moved easily out of the way. "They'll call you Queenslayer by the time I'm done with you." She pressed forward.

"What the hells are you doing this for?"

"Because I can?" Arya grinned. She might never get revenge on Cersei. She might never get to see Joffrey breathe his last like Sansa didn't.

A howling noise carried through the entire forest and Arya stopped dead in her tracks and looked around wildly. She knew that howl. She heard it in her dreams, she felt it in her bones, and she had been drawn to it the last time she had been in this area.

"What is it you little shit?" Clegane looked over at her and they heard stomping legs and they watched as the Kingslayer ran into the darkness. "Aw, fuck he is getting away. I thought it might be fun to watch you kill that ass."

"No, we should leave him to the wolves." Arya turned back to Clegane. "They are coming. This is their land and this pack doesn't like lions."

"Is this the one the fucking brotherhood talked about? A giant dire wolf in the Riverlands?" Clegane looked at her and it hit him she saw it sweep across his face. Where they stood, what had happened here all those years ago.

"You killed Mycah here." She said thinking of her companion from before. "The butcher's boy."

"You wanted to kill me for him." Clegane looked at her. "Still going to kill me now?"

"I think you did that yourself."

"So it's your bitch wolf that cunt wanted to kill is still running around her?" Clegane looked around as the woods grew darker and the howling grew louder.

"Nymeria," Arya said and her heartfelt like cracking open.

* * *

The home of the Cannogmen was not like Jon had expected. He had never met them before, but he knew Howland Reed lived here. He was the only man in the seven kingdoms who could confirm what he needed to know. They hadn't known why he wanted this, or why he needed this. There was one thing to be told things that had been sent to the citadel and the words of his brother. Cousin. He corrected himself. He wasn't just a Snow anymore. He was a Targaryen if they were to be believed. What if Daenerys had been right that they had been manipulating him? There was only one way to be sure. One way to know. One person in the whole of Westeros who knew the truth. The father of the two that had carried north of the wall.

Meera Reed met him at the edge of their village. Their houses floating and makeshift bridges attached to each. "I had expected the dead to get further south," the brunette shrugged her cloak on her shoulders.

"I'm glad they did not." Jon offered. "Has your village been well?"

"The legendary Cannog-"

"We're not legends here, Ser." Meera interrupted him.

"But of course you are, you traveled north of the wall with Bran Stark and brought him home." Davos offered.

"What I brought to Winterfell wasn't Bran, but my father knew you and has been expecting you for some time," Meera replied. "Please, follow me. He told me to meet you here. Greenseeing runs in our family."

She nodded at the two men and lead them down the bridges, through the village and to the largest hut that floated in front of them. Meera knocked on the door shortly. "Father?" She called inside. There was no reply but she opened the door. "Please be kind, sometimes I feel he followed my brother into his green dreams."

The door opened of the wood hut and everything looked different and dark. There were lit flames and torches around the man who sat on a chair in the center of the room. IT was made of wood with moss growing on it, and flowers. It looked so strange and filled with life in a way that none of the thrones of winter fell ever felt. A man sat on it, he was about the age Ned Stark would have been. His clothing had been covered with moss and netting similar to how his daughter was dressed.

"I have been waiting for you, Jon. I didn't think you would ever come." Howland Reed sighed looking up at him with his strange deep brown eyes.

"So you know why I've come," Jon replied.

"Ever since the dragons headed north I have expected you, even before that, long before. I expected after the Starks marched south the first time, or when Ned went to the capital. I never expected him to keep the secret past manhood."

"Jon?" Davos turned to him.

"It's alright, Davos. Howland Reed knew my mother." He gave the man a small smile before turning back to Howland.

"And you seek me now?" Howland asked.

"The three-eyed Raven must have told you." Meera breathed.

"Aye, Bran did." Jon nodded at Meera.

"That isn't Bran." Meera insisted. "Bran had died north of the wall."

"But he looks like Bran, and sometimes he even-" Jon began.

"It's not like that." Meera insisted. "Ever since Hodor and Summer died… that has not been Bran. I traveled with him. I know him."

"He told me I was a Targaryen." Jon turned to Howland.

"He told you correctly." Howland stood. He was a taller man, broad in the shoulders as he rose. "You just wanted me to confirm it for you. Make it real. The only man in the seven kingdoms who could. Only other would have been the Star of Mourning. Stabbed him in the back to save your father."

"He's not my father." Jon spat. "He never was. He lied to me. He-"

"He kept you safe. Boy." Howland growled. "It cost him everything. All the honor he held so dearly, the good favor of his wife for a few years. To ride home with a child he pretended was his own, but he loved you. He may not have been Rhaegar, but he raised you and cared just the same."

"He did." Jon looked at the man and then to Davos. "Breathe this to no one."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Davos replied. "A Targaryen heir… does…"

"She does." Jon swallowed.

"Jon Snow is the one true heir of the iron throne, but I think you are like your father more than you'd admit." The older man grinned and walked towards them. "Remember the story I told you Meera?"

"Ned Stark walked into the Red Keep to Jaimie sitting on the throne the mad king on his belly bleeding and Ned Stark turned away from the rule. He could have taken it, he could have been king, but he turned it down." Meera looked at Jon.

"To hide you." Howland finished. "The war cost him most of his family and he refused to have it cost him one more. You don't want it either."

"You have a better claim," Davos added.

"Thank you, Howland Reed." Jon looked up at him his face tight and stern."I don't want it, never have. The last time I commanded anything my men stabbed me in the belly and heart."

"And yet here you are." Howland smiled. "You are destined for something greater."

"Greater than the Night King that Arya Stark killed?" Jon laughed.

"No." Howland reached up and held his face in his hands. "You have the look of him. Good old Ned. You may have not been born his son but you are. You are just as much a wolf as a dragon. Never forget what you are. The world will not. Wear it as armor and no one could ever use it against you."

Jon stopped. The words echoed in his head. He had here that before. Years ago. "He has green dreams. Like my brother did." Meera brought his attention to him. "Is Bran still alive?" She asked hesitantly.

"Yes." Jon added. "He helped us lure the night king to his end."

"You want to go with them south, don't you girl?" Howland asked.

"I would follow a Stark anywhere." Meera smiled at Jon. "Our families have always been friends. No, father, I want to go north and see the world without a night king."

"You may, and Jon…" Howland smiled. "I have already had some of my men ready to serve you. May they go south and provide the aid you need. You have always been ours in the north."

"Aye, thank you for seeing me today." Jon looked at his eyes, seeing everything and nothing at the same time.

"Be well, Jon Snow." Howland smiled. "Your destiny is in your own hands now."

* * *

Howling followed him as he ran through the woods, through the trees, through the darkness. His horse lost behind him as he searched for perchance. If the Stark girl was at his heels he would be a dead man. He hadn't known she was going to kill Cersei even though now it all made sense with each foot forward. He wasn't ready to let anyone get to her.

Instead, there were wolves following him. Chasing his feet as he ran through the thickets, through the marsh into the group of north men. He thought he could fit still. He thought he could flee. He slew a few of them before they wrestled him to the ground. The Northmen bound his stump and his hand as he stared at the dead men at his feet. Three to his toll. Three to his ruin.

* * *

At the foot of her bed, Daenerys stood weaving her hands in Missandei's hair. She had finished hers this morning and as a ritual, the two women shared in this. Her constant advisor and companion had been quiet since they returned to the south, a distance had grown between them but it did not remove their comfortable familiarity with each other. "What do you wish to happen after you gain the throne?" Missandei turned to her, large brown eyes questioning and king.

"I will rule, as queens do," Daenerys said simply, it was always her destiny. She had seen that with the snow in the house of the undying. She just had to convince him to come with her. "With you as one of my advisors."

Missandei's lips pursed and Daenerys' heart sank. There was apprehension to her. "I do not think my place is here in these cold lands, my Queen. Once you have everything your heart desires I would wish to return home… to Naath."

"And Grey Worm?" Daenerys hands fell to her side.

"If my Queen permits and if he is to ask… I would be honored if he would accompany me. My people are peaceful." Daenerys searched her face for any hint of lies, any hint of betrayal and she saw what she hated the most a woman full of hope and love.

"Once I am on the throne," Daenerys began thinking of a life she had wanted, thinking of a man she cared more for than the sun and the stars. "And once things are settled… you would have my blessing."

Missandei looked ahead of her while Daenerys' finished the last twist of the woman's hair. She was a slave when she met her and she would not constrict her freedom now. Her hurt lurched in her chest, and she felt the shame and anger bubble under the surface for the man that turned her away in the north. She longed for the certainty and power of Khal Drogo. Of the way, he presented the world to her as if he could bring it to its knees just to see her smile. He would have given her this world, she knows. They would have held hands and mounted it together, but for Missandei… she would allow her peace and love in a way Daenerys had never known.

"Will you write to me?" Daenerys asked.

"I would like nothing more." Missandei smiled. "I will not leave you until there is a crown on your head and a throne on which you sit."

"Missandei," Daenerys implored as the younger woman turned to her. "You have been my dearest friend for the last few years since I began this journey. I would wish you no less than the happiness you deserve."

"Thank you, Dany." Missandei replied looking down at her hands, Daenerys could almost feel the smile on the woman's lips. She thought of her brother and Jon snow the last people who ever called her that and on Missandei it sounded right. It sounded everything it was meant to sound not something of passion or familial bonds but of friendship and love they had built for each over the year. "I'm sorry I was scarce the night of Winterfell's feast."

"Why ever would you apologize for that?" Daenerys tried not to sound shocked or whatever she was meant too.

"I was with Grey Worm instead of being in the great hall. Those Northerners… you helped save them and they gave you nothing. Our men died and that… man was the hero." Missandei looked at the stone in front of her. "You rode a dragon longer and harder than Jon Snow. You have saved us. You have saved others. Not even a pretty male gets to take that away from you."

Her advisor turned to her with a fervor she had never seen in the woman. "Missandei…" She said softly.

"They did not like us. I tried to speak to children and they hurried away." Missandei was kind and thoughtful, always. To see her so upset hurt Daenerys' heart. "They stared at us as we came to help… we do not belong here."

"You belong anywhere with me. I am your queen." Daenerys stood as tall as she could. "I will make-"

"No, Khaleesi." Missandei counciled. "I do not mean to be bold but I've seen what happens when your hand bends to the will of others, and I wish to go home. For those that stay fight for them and when I see each dawn at Naath I will think of the queen who saved me from bondage, who rode a dragon and broke free from the bonds of men. I may never have children but the little ones of my village will always know about the dragon queen who broke chains and saved the innocent. They will love you as I always have." She put her hand on Daenerys' face. It was warm and gentle and Dany wished she could take her to a red door a lifetime ago with a lemon tree. Where there were no dragons, armies, or destinies. Where there were no innocents to liberate and queens to crown or men from the north who stole her north and her heart. Where Drogo would still live and Rhaego would have grown into a fine man.

That was not this world, and she needed to focus on what was ahead. The last war she hoped to ever fight.

* * *

Ravens flew in and out of Winterfell with a frequency even Sansa couldn't account for. There were the usual letters sent from her brother, sent from the south, sent from old town and sent from her sister who had finally arrived in the North Men's camp. She didn't ask how Arya had managed to hide in plain sight but she remembered that night with the game of faces and thought it best not to ask.

"You seem troubled my lady." Ser Brienne asked her when she broke her fast. She had the knight keep her company on most days. She had always felt safe with her around, and with Pod.

"I've heard a word from the Northern encampment. They have passed the Riverlands and will be approaching Dragonstone shortly." Sansa held the wine in her hand, thinking of Cersei. She often thought of Cersei when she would raise the wine to her lips. She would think of Cersei and Baelish and their cruel lessons, but she would also think of Margaery who smiled at her kindly.

"Has Arya-" Brienne began and Sansa motioned for her silence.

"The wolf is at their door." Sansa smiled as a servant girl came in and poured more wine. "I know Queen Daenerys will receive my brother well, and continued good relations with the north."

Brienne watched as the small girl left and she looked back at Sansa a bit of confusion passed her eyes. "My lady?"

"That one is a spider." Sansa smiled once they were alone and sipped her wine. "I'd rather the spider than the tiny lions that Cersei keeps trying to slip past me. I know they are here, but they never last long."

"Do you execute them?" Brienne pursed her lips, knowing the distastes of dishonor. If such a thing were to past she would have expected Sansa to ask her to swing the sword.

"No," Sansa leaned back against her chair. "Never. We don't hurt children in the north. I give them home, a hearth, and safety. And we control what they tell the Lion."

"My lady," Brienne said softly. "That sounds awfully taxing."

"It is," Sansa looked at her meal. "I do not want our sword to take the Dragon without proper cause." She looked at her knight. "You must think me wicked."

"No, my lady. " Brienne turned back to her food. "I've had harsh lessons myself lately."

Sansa swallowed. She knew what she spoke of and how it hurt. She never felt that. The keen love under her skin that swallowed honor and propriety. She envied her knight in that manner, but loved her just all the same.

"Ser Brienne," Sansa started trying to find the words to tell the woman in front of her what she had learned.

"My lady?" Brienne's blue eyes stared at her like she knew what she was about to say.

"They found Jaimie Lannister," Sansa saw her eyes widen in fear, "not the Queen. Jon found him near the northern encampment. He has been taken into their custody. He killed a few of their men."

"Did they-" Brienne looked at her between horror and hope.

"No, Jon would never without just cause. They are taking him to the Queen." Sansa swallowed. "I fear he won't fair as well as he did in the north. Would you like me to write on his behalf?"

Brienne looked at her and Sansa waited. This was never her choice to make. "If.. If there is an execution I ask that it be done with honor and quick."

"Do you know why he went south?" Sansa asked pointedly. "He had seemed happy here."

"To his sister, my Lady." Brienne looked at her evenly.

"I am sorry if my words moved him to leave," Sansa swallowed.

"I do not blame you, my lady," Brienne answered.

"Sansa." She reached out and touched her knight's hand. "I have known many knights in my life Ser Brienne but none of them were true. None except you. If you wish it I would write on your behalf to spare him some kindness."

"I would like that, Sansa." Brienne held her hand back, just as tight.

"I will have Bran watch him if that is your wish." Sansa offered. "He might not like it if he were to find out. But I trust you with my life and the honor of my family… and you trusted him with it. In his time here I do not imagine him the same man he was years ago. I pray to the gods old and new that he may return here one day."

"I doubt it. That he would return here," Brienne swallowed and looked out the window.

"Dragons have been to the north, my brother is the three-eyed raven, and my sister can trade faces. It wouldn't be the strangest thing for him to return here, and if he ever does as long as you believe him… he can always have a home here." Sansa told her. There was a time she hated all the Lannisters and would do anything to rip them out, but that was a world ago. A life ago. A girl that still believed in songs. There were songs still, some of ice and fire, but it was what they made them. She cared not about songs anymore. She cared about the north. Her home. What she had desperately tried to leave so long ago. "I would give everything to make sure the ones we love have a home to come back to."

"They will, my lady." Brienne smiled at her and it was beautiful. Sansa returned it with the same fervor. When she had fits of fancy she imagined her father, her mother, and Robb sent her the truest knight in the seven kingdoms.

* * *

"We're going to have to Around the war table they looked at the rest of the journey. Davos sat next to Gendry talking in a low voice. He had been giving the bastard lessons about Storms end. Jon looked at Dragonstone wondering about Dany and how she faired. If she was happy or she missed him. He swallowed the thoughts down and wish he had ale to quiet the thoughts in his head. He wondered what Ned Stark would think of his... Nephew laying with his aunt. There was no honor in it.

The dragons had always done it for their entire reign. Would it be so bad to love a woman like her? She was fire and her skin felt like the cinders of the sun.

A loud howl broke his concentration. All three of them stopped and looked around. "The wolves of the Riverlands," Gendry said.

"Thought they were just a story." Davos sighed.

"After you left me rowing I traveled down this way. They always watched me from a distance. It was weird." Gendry shrugged.

Ghost stood up and stared at him. If the wolf had sound he would have whined the way his brothers and sisters had. "What is it, boy?" Jon asked before Ghost turned himself around and looked at Jon his eyes dark and red but pleading.

"Seems your wolf wants something," Davos added watching how Ghost moved it's feet with urgency and in circles.

Jon stared at Ghost as the wolf began to nudge him and urge him on. Jon turned to his companions. "I'll return shortly."

"I don't think you can reason with the wolves to join our army, Jon Snow." Davos looked up at him.

Ghost urged him forward. "Alright, boy, alright," Jon said annoyed walking through the darkness. The tents were lined with men sitting around with fire drinking and waiting. The snow hadn't been falling near them and he wondered if the winter was already over. If it was all tied to the night king to begin with. He followed ghost through the path of men. They watched him in silence as the dire wolf lead him on towards the woods, towards the howls. The light peaking over the horizon as they walked through the make shift the bramble, and out of the camp. "Ghost." He called for the dire wolf trying to get its attention.

The creature paid no attention to him as he leads him further into the forest. Into the rising dawn. There was an empty clearing they entered before Ghost bolted into the thicket leaving Jon alone. Howls came, close than before and he could hear the animals circling him, rushing around him.

He wasn't afraid. Jon had died once and he knew the sound of wolves should terrify him especially with the stories about these ones, but instead, he stood and he waited as the sun rose a bit sharper and a large grey wolf came into sight over the fallen trees. The wolf looked at him, and he looked at it. It's eyes large and intimidating, but all together familiar as Ghost ran up next to it and nuzzled the creature affectionately.

The large dire wolf, bigger than Ghost, padded towards him as more members of its pack appeared. He held his gloved hand out and took a deep breath, afraid to even speak. There were only two dire wolves left south of the wall. Ghost who had been with him, and one other. "Nymeria." He breathed as the grey wolf sniffed his hand, ghost circling her like a lost friend.

His heart felt warm and alive more than it had since that cabin on a ship what felt like a lifetime ago. "Hello, girl." Jon reached moved his hand behind her ears as she snorted at him playfully and pushed forward rubbing her whole side against him.

* * *

The sound of the sea soured in her. Yara Greyjoy touched the salt and sand of the iron islands and for the first time in years she felt at home. She had followed a dragon and was rewarded. This was more than that. This was her everything. Her home. Her soul. The blades she wore. The axes she fought with. They would adhere to no raping or pillaging. She owed her queen that. This was her world. Her being. The blood in her bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: I know that Ghost is supposedly the largest but the Wolves haven't been side to side since the first season and Nymeria has been running around the Riverlands as an Alpha Wolf. It also goes on Theon's joke that Ghost is the runt so Nymeria would be larger. The important thing is they are good heckin' wolves. Also, it amuses me that Arya, who is the shortest stark, has the largest wolf.


	4. Turn On Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaimie is taken prisoner by the Northmen. Arianne plays the game and proposes marriage alignments. A wolf infiltrates the Northmen's camp.

The cage sits out in the cold, in the dark and Jaimie struggled against the ropes that tied him together. Outside his confines stood two northern men who would occasionally look at him with curiosity. Jaimie recognized one from the battlements during the Long Night. He didn't care what they thought.

A figure walked towards him and Jaimie looked back down at the dirt by his boots. An old memory flickered in his mind one that the bastard of Winterfell would care to hear. Jaimie thought of a woman with dark red hair and the promises he made then. "The last time a Stark came to my cage they let me out. Course the one before that intimidated me with their wolf… which will you be Lord Snow?"

"Neither." Jon sighed. Was his face always so glum like that? He wondered if the boy in front of him ever took the time to smile.

"So both then, let me out and feed me to your wolf. You northern folk are all so dramatic." Jaimie prodded.

"Thought you might be staying in Winterfell since the last time I saw you," Jon replied. "You fought for us."

"And now my oath in that order is fulfilled besides we were comrades in arms? Why not just let me go on my merry way?" Jaimie grinned and strained again trying to bring his arms up. "I could fight for you again?"

"Where are you going, Kingslayer?" Jon kept his voice even. "What business do you have in the south?"

"Well, it is dreadfully cold up north." Jaimie retorted.

"You killed three of my men." Jon raised his voice looking at him without any hint of amusement.

"They got in my way," Jaimie grinned knowing he was getting under the man's skin. "Besides, I'm on my way to see my brother. You might know him… Blonde hair, sharp tongue. Hand of a silver-haired queen?"

"Aye, they should be docked and awaiting our arrival in Dragonstone." Jon moved forward.

"Am I to be your prisoner, then?" Jaimie asked.

"That is not my decision to make. I am not-" Jon began.

"It is very obvious that you are not the Queen. How does she manage to get her hair braided every morning?" Jaimie cocked his head to the side thinking about the elaborate hairstyle. "Is that how you serve her?"

"Don't think I'm not thankful you came and joined us to fight the White Walkers. You abandoned your post and duty to do so," Jon said evenly.

"And I am once again a prisoner of a Stark. You are a Stark aren't you?" Jaimie leaned against his post eyeing the bastard in front of him.

A large white dire wolf padded into the room. It reminded him of a large grey one from years prior after the battle of whispering wood when he was a prisoner of a Stark man once again. Although that one had been more of a boy. "I am as every bit a Stark as my family." Jon swallowed as the wolf looked at him with care.

"Perhaps you are." Jaimie licked his lips. "I request that I am to be given to my brother's keep for him to decide what to do with me. I was merely traveling south because the north is terribly dull and serious."

"If that were true you wouldn't have killed my men," Jon replied. "And it won't be Tyrion I hand you to, it will be our Queen."

"She isn't my queen. I never bent the knee to her."

* * *

The food grows cold before her. Her small council surrounds the war table much to her ire. She had thought all plans had been put forth in the north. Missandei had braided her hair this morning. Eight braids for eight years of victory and each one larger than the last. She was liberator, queen, and conquerer. She had freed slavers bay and now she stood in a room of lesser men and women demanding things that one would not ask a dragon. They were supposed to be leaving this morning to bring her wrath to Cersei's gate and show her what a real queen is.

Instead, they are now debating around her. She stands to look at the map at her fingers. She had run her hand over every ridge, every inch of it. It was her destiny to touch the sky and take what was her. "Quiet." She demands and they all obey. They turn to her, their sovereign, and she sighs. "We were meant to leave today." She looks at Tyrion pointedly. "This is not what we discussed.

"I apologize, your grace, none of us could have anticipated the Northmen's excursion to the Bog Men's territory." Tyrion bowed reverently and she was not satisfied.

"Do any of my council know what he was seeking there?" Daenerys asked plainly.

"No, your grace," Arianne replied. "My family has never been close to the Starks."

Varys turned to Tyrion and she watched them with interest. "What do you think, Varys?" She asked him pointedly.

"Howland Reed governs the Cannogmen, your grace. Ned Stark and he had always been friends. I heard rumors while we were in the north that it was the daughter and son of Howland Reed who had ventured north with Bran." Varys replied watching her eyes for something he would never find.

"Ah." Daenerys looked over at Tyrion who was looking at the map ahead. Did they know? She had to imagine they might of. Jon had spoken of telling his Kin. Did he? He never confirmed as she left before him behind with her dragon and her army and her birth rite ahead.

"I imagine he might be trying to gain more of an insight into what has become of his brother." Tyrion offered. "Bran Stark being the three-eyed raven and all."

"The Three-Eyed Raven." Daenerys tried her best not to laugh, it had helped them kill the dead but the boy had chosen to not accompany any of them. "If he is such a device why did he not join us?"

"Perhaps," Tyrion chose his words carefully, "that is beyond our understanding."

"I am the rightful queen of the seven kingdoms, wouldn't that be in the interest of the three-eyed raven?" Daenerys pursed her lips looking amongst the council around her. "If he is to record all of human memory shouldn't he be-"

"I do not think he needs to travel in order to… recall things." Tyrion tried to figure out how to gap what he had been told at Winterfell from the boy himself. He had told her as much. What else had a raven told her hand?

"So the boy sees things?" Arianne Martell interrupted. She leaned against the dark wall a vision of yellow sashes and orange skirts with a sun ornament hanging between her breasts.

"All of history, apparently," Varys offered her. "Helped us in the war with the White Walkers."

"What were they like?" Arianne asked. "We were still en route from Tyosh when we heard from the Ravens that such a thing was even possible."

"They were monsters," Daenerys spoke drawing all their attention back to her, "and we won." She didn't think of the cost, she swallowed it down deep inside her with the loss of Jorah, and how Jon had begun pulling away from her. "And now it is time for our ships to be restocked and the last war to begin."

"I have sent word to my brother Quentyn, he will be sending portions of our army up to King's Landing once the seas are kind, my Queen." Arianna gave her a sparkly smile, and part of her didn't trust it.

There was the red-haired girl in the north and her words echoed in her mind. What about the north and she thought to herself. "How many can we expect?" Daenerys asked looking at the map ahead of them. Arianne reached and placed three suns shaped pieces on the board. "At least three thousand men at first. Our reserves aren't as depleted."

"How many came with you?" Daenerys asked.

"I have a small retinue of over 100 men to assure my safe passage to Dragonstone." Arianne looked at her nails as if the conversation were boring her.

"May I suggest we parlay with Cersei Lannister in an attempt to spare the lives of the civilians?" Varys interrupted.

"I doubt Cersei Lannister would agree to such a thing." Daenerys bit back. "I doubt she would be as considerate to all the innocents that she'll easily let die."

"My queen-" Tyrion pleaded. "I know my sister."

"As well as you trusted her to still go north to fight against the dead." Daenerys swallowed. She didn't want to show weakness here. She had no claim to her glory in this land that had borne her. "We shall attempt a parlay so they all may see that Daenerys Targaryen did all she could to avoid bloodshed. Send the raven asking to meet to discuss terms."

Tyrion swallowed.

"You swore to obey me." Daenerys schooled her face, the way a dragon might appease a lesser foe. Tyrion was a lion. He would never know how to fly in the sky.

"Of course, my queen. At once."

* * *

Tyrion had left the room as fast as he could walk. Arianne turned back to the silver-haired queen. She was curious, no doubt, of the beauty before her. She saw the power and grace of each word. "My Queen," she smiled drawing Daenerys' attention to her. "I know now is not the time, but may I request an audience with you… alone?"

Daenerys looked at Missandei and Grey Worm, her two closest allies Arriane had learned. With her last look flitting over Varys with a mode of apprehension. Arianne smiled and filed it away just like her father had taught her. He had taught her so many things. Daenerys motioned towards the nearby solar and she followed her like a dog after it's master.

"What do you wish to speak to me about?" The Queen asked her.

"Marriage, my Queen." Arianne kept her composure, her calm smile, her elegant brow as the dragon looked at her bewildered. "Not with me. Of course. Though, I would not object."

That made her laugh, a real laugh. One that touched her eyes and part of Arianne ached that such a wonderful beauty seemed to not laugh like that in a long time. "Yara Greyjoy gave me a similar proposal."

"Women are better at it than men, I assure you." Arianne giggled. "You are to be a queen to the seven kingdoms, your grace, to secure your house you need heirs. When I was but a child my father had promised me to your brother."

"Rhaegar was already married." Daenerys looked at her curiously.

"Not, Rhaegar. Viserys. At that time he was our hope for justice at what was done to our family when the usurper claimed the throne and killed Elia and her children. Our family has never forgotten and we do not bow to anything less of a dragon." Arianne reached out and took Daenerys' hand. They were calloused but small. A brave woman indeed.

"Viserys…" Daenerys replied as she looked far away into the bay. It was the one her mother and Viserys had escaped into so long ago.

"I do not know or care what happened to my betrothed. I hear stories that he was a monster, a beggar, or a king. All I know is that you are here, and you are the blood of the dragon. You will bring us the vengeance of fire and blood. All I ask is you let us help give the Mountain and Cersei what they deserve."

"That I can do." Daenerys grinned at her. "But… Marriage?"

"I have a brother who is a prince in Dorne. You do not deserve a common lord. You deserve a prince. One that I can promise you would be kind to you. Quentyn has always been gentle. He would be a good husband and a faithful King."

Something Arianne did not know crossed the queen's face. Daenerys looked away from her and out to sea. "I am not yet ready to marry." Daenerys turned back.

"You were married before to.. What was it your people said… Sun and stars? I understand." Arianne gave her an assuring smile. "There was a knight I was madly in love with. The entire reason outside of our alliance that I was shipped out to Tyosh. My father thought the flight of fancy would fade. He was wrong. Sometimes we love who we love. My honor was not tarnished and I was loyal to my betrothed. Until his death came. When this battle is overall I ask is you speak to Quentyn, and if you grow to love him a marriage may take place."

"What about you, should you not marry Heir of Dorne?" Daenerys replied.

"Oh, I have my eye on the bastard wolf from the north. What better alliance to maintain peace for our queen?" Arianne smiled and the look on Daenerys' face might have killed her where she stood. "A Queen such as yourself needs someone on your playing field."

"Why Lord Snow?" Daenerys pursed her lips.

"Because in the south we love our bastards as we do our true brothers and sisters." Arianne smiled.

"Thank you, Princess. I will consider your proposal." Daenerys replied her face gone cold and slack. Slipped back into a mask she had let down earlier. Arianna would have run then but now her people's future rode on her. Their hope. She would not let them down as she smiled in return.

"You are a queen, my lady. You bow to no one." Arianne played the game, perhaps better than most of them she liked to think. Her father was good, bending the knee and plotting with Illyrio across the sea. Ellaria never knew to wait for his moves. He was a master at games, and Arianne was his willing pupil.

"Have you ever smelled a winter rose?"Daenerys looked back up at her. "It's a sweet scent. My father told me about the flower crown that Rhaegar Targaryen gave to Lyanna Stark instead of my aunt, Elia."

"I have heard stories about Elia Martell. Of how kind and gentle." Daenerys replied as Arianne took her hand.

"Dragons and Lions have slighted my house but we have never bowed. ." Arianne held her eyes fast. "Let us be family, again."

* * *

Euron had not left any men to defend the Iron Islands. He had taken them with him on his journey to woo a Queen and Yara had never been more disgusted. She had been brought weak when she saw what became of Theon. She had been rage when she saw what Euron had decided to do. This was beyond the pale for her. Her islands. Her home. All that she is or ever would be left open in Euron's wake. The people she loved and cared for. They would fight to their deaths, that's what the Iron Born did… but now… they were wary as she came to shore. Wary as she showed them her axes.

"What the seven hells…" one of her men whispered.

"They claimed a man king who never thought to claim them." Yara scowled. "This is our home, and we take it."

They had landed at Pyke and there was no one, no adversary left to greet them. "I don't think we'll have to take much."

"We do not hurt our people, and we do not rape or pillage." She looked at her men gathered around her. "We take out anyone who is loyal to Euron. He doesn't deserve them."

"But… we used to be-" Her men whispered.

"We are better than that." Yara thought of a dragon, one she thought to bed, at King's Landing. "We take what it is ours and then we go to find the rest of them. Then I promise you all the glory war can bring."

"For YARA!" The men cried. "FOR YARA!" The screamed into the salted sky. For the home that would be theirs again.

* * *

Varys had joined Tyrion in the Rookery. "The Princess of Dorne is a gift we couldn't have asked better for."

"Is she wooing our queen with niceties and the same things that the Greyjoy girl did?" Tyrion almost growled at him. He was tired. He wanted wine. He wanted his family to be safe. It was a hard situation to be in where he stood right now. He wanted Daenerys to be the woman he saw her be.

"I do not think they have the same proclivities but I have been wrong before." Varys offered. "I do think she is offering a plan for marriage and succession. Otherwise, what is the point of mentioning her brother as often as she does?"

"Power. Is she like Doran at all?" Tyrion asked. "Or Ellaria and Oberyn?"

"I would like to think she has been a mixture of both. We simply just don't know. She hasn't been in our sphere for years. She reminds me of Queen Margaery, don't you think?" Varys asked.

"Glad we have Queen Daenerys then. Cersei would have hated her." Tyrion reached for the glass he brought with him.

"What do you intend to send your sister?" Varys asked.

"Terms for a parlay," Tyrion replied.

"Where?" Varys grinned at him.

"Are you going to tell your little spiders and feed it back to Cersei?" Tyrion looked at the man he thought friend.

"No, I would not. Cersei would not be good for this realm. There is no world where that could happen." Varys sighed.

Tyrion took another sip of his wine. "Are you going to tell people about Jon?"

"If Jon proves fertile after all of this is open I might. But right now she is our best chance to route out Cersei. Your sister won't bend the knee." Varys looked at the Ravens. "And I am not a stupid man. Despite Daenerys temper… if we can continue to reason with her…"

"You've come around then?" Tyrion replied. "We will have a problem in the North afterward.

"No, but I believe you. A small man can cast a large shadow." Varys looked at him like he was the size of a king."And we can work on the north once the war with Cersei is won."

"Where do you suggest the Parlay then?" Tyrion asked.

"Duskendale. It was where Aegon started his conquest. Close enough to both King's Landing and Dragonstone. Lord Rykker will be a bit hard to convince but once we have his word it would be a good place to start. It has a history with both houses." Varys offered.

"My sister…"

"She won't go for it. I doubt she would ever bend the knee to anyone ever again after Robert and Joffrey." Varys walked beside him as Tyrion began to sit and write the message to hopefully change their futures.

"I know, but we at least need to try." Tyrion offered.

* * *

The fact that liberating the Iron Islands came so easy did not sit well with her. With every village,

Arya slipped into the camp of Northmen far easier than she would have liked. Her skin was different and she was not to be recognized by any of them. She was just another man on the front lines, but none of them questioned her being there. Jon Snow needed better guards. In the event they all lived through this she would make sure he had them. She slipped in with a skin and a face she stole from a corpse on the road. Her hair was stringy and red. Some Riverlands boy who died unceremoniously. She didn't want to kill for her faces ever since the waif.

Clegane had gone through the front saying he was traveling south. If they let him through or not that was on him. His vengeance was not her mission. She had two of her own as she slipped between people and to the fires. Listening to the stories of the men in the camps. "What do you think of the Dragon Queen?" She said in a voice that was not her own.

"She flew a dragon and burned the night king! I was at the front lines and I saw it. Jon Snow flew a dragon too but she… she faced him herself!" The young man was beyond himself.

"You saw that?" Arya asked.

"I did. I know my family won't believe me. But I did." The boy insisted. "There are few things I would ever say but I saw her do that. I saw her fight after her dragon flew off… with that knight of hers. She fought on the ground with us."

"Did she?" Arya smiled eating her bread.

"Yes. She did. It was a sight to be seen. The only other women I've ever seen fight were wildlings or Arya Stark or Brienne of Tarth or the Mormonts" He kept rambling. "I mean I hadn't seen them… but I heard about it. Did you hear that Arya Stark killed the night king?"

"I had not, well I had in a rumor. Do you think she did?" Arya looked up at him curiously.

"I don't doubt it. I've been a Northman all my life. Raised in the Stonyshores. Mum worked as a maid until the Iron Born came years ago. Then we fled further north. If anyone was to take out the Night King it was to be a Stark. Do you know who they think he was?"

"No," Arya replied.

"The Stark that ran off with a woman made of ice. She seduced him and made him what he was." The boy replied.

"What is your name?" She asked.

"Eddard Snow. My mother named me after Lord Stark when he came back from the wars. I wasn't… Anything like the Lord. He was always so much.. Grandeur… but she said an honorable name might make me an honorable man." Eddard replied.

"So you are a bastard then?" Arya looked at him, he had the look of the north, that was true.

"Yes." He shrugged. "Doesn't make fighting for the right cause any less than what it was."

"Do you believe in her?" Arya looked at him, playing the game of lies. Wondering if he even knew the words he spoke.

"Not as much as I believe in Jon Snow, but she came to the North when she didn't have to. She brought dragons. Did you see them? I only heard about them in stories."

"Same, my Nan told me about all the horrid things they could do," Arya replied eating a bit of the jerky in front of her.

"I worry about what a Dragon does when there are no more wars." Eddard looked at the food before him. "When the food runs out and the lords fall. What will become of my mum? When Robb Stark died everything fell apart and even when the Boltons took over we didn't have much aid. It wasn't until Lady Sansa that we got the food we needed. Most of my family died."

"They do that without a good lord to ensure they don't." Arya looked at him, and she remembered about the lords about the dead before her. About how she wanted to be a lord of a holdfast to make sure her people never starved ever again. She swallowed. Arya said honestly. "I know the Lady of Winterfell. And the Lord. They care about all of their subjects.".

"But the youngest sister. She killed the night king. I wonder what she is like." He said dreamily. "Wonder what she thinks of it all. Wonder who they'll find worthy of her now?"

"Probably doesn't want to talk about it at all." Arya shrugged it off.

"Heard the hound joined the camp tonight." Eddard looked at her. She rolled her eyes in a skin that was not hers. "He looked like he was ready to kill a man."

"He is an ass." Arya offered.

* * *

The fact that liberating the Iron Islands came so easy did not sit well with her. With every village, they visited, with all Euron's men they killed and left as an example it never stopped being an ache for her. Her uncle took her home and left it with nothing to defend it. Did he not think of what would happen? She had all the plans in her mind of everything she had to do. All the people she would have to kill. All the battles Yara Greyjoy would have to fight. She wasn't her uncle. A younger of three. She was the firstborn. She learned her people's names.

And they learned hers she had known when she liberated the first village. They clung to her like a goddess. Like some lost figure in their dreams. They clutched her like the ocean on the shore. She made her promises. She made her vows.

They called her salt Queen and they gave her the axes of her ancestors. She would sink them into an uncle or two. The Islands should never be this easy to conquer, and she vowed as her people gathered around her to never allow it again.

With the last letter from her brother in her pocket and the wind at her back. She would claim what had been taken. She would let the world know that the Iron Islands would never be defenseless again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, a lot of political drama is based on marriage alignments and fertility. It's a whole thing.


	5. Baptize Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Three-Eyed Raven is cryptic as Meera Reed arrives in the north. Cersei makes a plan with the Golden Company. The Northmen take a prisoner as a wolf infiltrates their camp. Daenery's growing paranoia becomes a problem.

Sansa found Bran out by the Godswood. She watched him from the entryway for a bit, he didn't move or even have the slightest slip of the tongue that he knew she was there. She wondered if he was flying with his ravens or watching something in the past. "Bran." She called for him, tearing his mind away from wherever it had stayed. She wasn't her mother, but she had to wonder if a part of Catelyn lived in her. One that was able to call him from great heights.

"I was flying." He turned to Sansa.

"Where did your little birds take you this time?" She asked simply sitting down before him like a child before a story.

"The Riverlands and the Crownlands. Jon should be at Dragonstone by nightfall. Arya has infiltrated the camp as a boy from the Riverlands. The Queen is uncertain of her alliances." He looked over at his sister or his blood sister. The three-eyed raven was a strange creature. "She has never been so surrounded by people and so alone."

There were many things she and the dragon queen had in common, this most of all she suspected. She wondered what else Bran saw of her, but she was no longer alone. "Bran, how fare Jon and Arya?"

"They ache." Bran looked back at the tree, "but they are well. Jon found Nymeria."

At attention, she stood and grasped his hand. "Nymeria?" The joy could not be covered by her voice. In this, she would have lost the game of faces but she didn't care. The last time she saw that dire wolf was so many years ago when she was a fool.

"She has her own pack now. Ghost didn't join her he went back to Jon, but Nymeria is following their army." Bran smiled. "Perhaps they follow another alpha wolf."

"Wasn't Ghost bigger than Nymeria when Jon left for Winterfell?" Sansa thought of her sister and the wolf that nipped at her heels and attacked Joffrey. There were many days in the red keep where she wished Nymeria had ripped him asunder. A more fitting end she thought of the golden lion in the jaws of a wolf instead of gasping for breath.

"He was, but Nymeria has had better meals and better time to grow. She's eaten well the last few years on the bones of our enemies." Bran looked at her, but not. His eyes distant and far away. There was a part of him that would never be coming back. "She feels all of Arya's rage the way I would feel Summer's. mind"

"You felt Summer's mind?" Sansa looked at him. "When you were the three-eyed Raven?"

"Before, when I was a little boy. Perhaps, had our father not had to kill Lady you may have grown to have a similar bond. The Reeds showed me the truth. The boy Jojen."

"You don't speak of your companions often." Sansa frowned.

"As you do not speak of anyone besides Her Brienne." He replied without inflection.

"She was the only one worth mentioning." Sansa sighed. "What we're the Reeds like?"

"Jojen had Greendreams just like his father. Meera… Arya would have loved Meera. It is a shame they will never meet."

"Is she dead?" Sansa asked.

"There is a letter coming to you." Bran interrupted her train of thought. "One we never thought to receive, and I will be having a guest. Would you prepare a chamber near to my own and give her all the courtesies a Lady of Winterfell can."

"Of course, who is she?" Sansa asked.

"Meera Reed." Bran smiled softly. "Arya

"Do you wish me to bring guards?" She asked. Bran may be strange and something beyond her but they still shared the same blood and she would fight to the death for him, and all of them.

"No. She would never hurt me." Bran sighed.

"But you said she would never meet Arya." Sansa pressed. "Is something going to happen to Arya?"

"If you don't mind, I must concentrate," Bran spoke in that impassive voice that made her want to scream when it was used towards her family.

"The Night King is dead, Bran. What else is there?" Sansa asked.

"That is the problem." Bran looked at her sadly, and for a moment she thought she saw the boy he once was. The one that climbed towers and wanted to fight alongside his brothers. Who ignored his lessons and played with Arya. The one that had a wolf named Summer and dreamed of all things magical until a Raven took him away.

"Will you tell me, little brother?" Sansa asked softly wondering if he was still Bran if he would look at his feet when he lied.

"When I am ready," Bran replied.

* * *

"M'lady, how are you finding your accommodations?" Tyrion asked Arianne.

"Lovely, although I miss Dorne and even Tyosh although it was never my home. The sun when it comes up across the waters is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I long to return to it. " Arianne smiled at him. "Be amongst my family."

"I thought your family died," Tyrion offered, "of that I am sorry."

"I am as well. So much has happened to your sister and father. I wonder, truly, where we would be now had they not done what they did. Would I still be in Tyosh waiting for a dragon prince?" Arianne looked at him in a way that cut him to his core. "Or would we be bending our knee to your psychopath of a sister after she orchestrated the death for her children?"

"Cersei would never hurt her children. It is the one thing in the world I know of her." Tyrion swirled. Anger reaching into his blood. It boiled. It ached.

"You still love her." Arianne smiled, it built and clung to her teeth.

"She tried to have me killed, do you think I'm daft?" Tyrion rolled his eyes.

"I think you blind." Arianne giggled into her wine goblet. "I think you haven't come to terms with the fact your family will be dying except you if our Dragons win."

"Dragons?" Tyrion sighed and gave her not perchance.

"Your face gives way to the truth. Perhaps you should have been schooled in the way of women." Arianne smiled. "There are so many dragons while this world burns, don't you think?"

Tyrion swallowed. "I do not know what you speak of Lady Arianne. Perhaps the whispers of my sister have reached your ears."

"Perhaps they have." She smiled into her wine. "Perhaps it's your whispers as well. There were stories of an Aegon Targaryen, son of Elia and Rhaegar, living in Pentos and studying to be king. That he would be a good just king. Or perhaps he was a bastard son of that wolf bitch and Rhaegar. Perhaps that is the story they tell. At the expense of all of my home."

"No, my lady. I assure you it's not that." Tyrion tried to reach out to her as she snapped her hand away.

"My father and my mother gave me all the skills I could use as a Queen should the Iron throne fall." Arianne stared at him and he felt he was a child again with Cersei. She had that cold calculating form, but Cersei never had any of the warmth.

"Daenerys is our rightful Queen." Tyrion took a sip of his wife.

"So was Aegon." Arianne looked at him. It felt like a thousand paper cuts at once.

She knew.

* * *

"My lady, we must speak," Tyrion said walking into Daenerys' chamber. She looked at him with annoyance as she looked out toward the road the Northmen would be traversing.

"I'm sure." She responded cold and he must have known then about the winter that had grasped her veins. She would never leave this place. Not until her last days.

"Perhaps we can have a private audience?" He begged her. She would not give in to such things.

"No, Grey Worm and Missandei have earned their right to my secrets. Varys still has to prove it. If this leaves this room we will know who spread it." Daenerys watched the waters in front of her ebbing and going with the tide.

"Perhaps it might not be-" Tyrion tried.

"I care not. Tell me what you wish to tell me. All of you should be my trusted allies. If you are not I'll burn you alive." She barely whispered. A slave to her own anger. She thought herself liberated from such things. Better than the girl sold to slavers. Better than what she could have been.

"Princess Arianne knows." Tyrion breathed, almost quiet.

Daenerys stood staring out the window, her hair unkempt as Missandei stood worried at the door. They should fear her. She is a dragon. "Who told her?" She whispered.

"My Queen, we did not whisper or breathe a word to her," Tyrion added.

The two men looked at each other with furrowed brows. "Pray, my lady it was not us." Varys offered.

"You have been looking to supplant me since the north." Daenerys walked towards Lord Varys who didn't flinch.

"You are our Queen." Varys reminded her. "But everything I do is for the good of the kingdom. So know that when I say that it means what you do. I don't have an answer for how the Princess of Dorne knows."

"You know everything else, why wouldn't you know this?" Daenerys spat. She felt the heat and anger rising in her, almost consuming her. In the distance, she could hear Drogon screaming into the sea. "How does she know. Find out how."

"Of course your grace," Varys curtseyed. "I promise you on my life it wasn't me."

"So was it you... My hand?" She looked at Tyrion.

"I can assure you it wasn't Tyrion." Varys immediately came to his defense. Of course two birds in the same nest.

"He can speak for himself." Daenerys stared him down.

"No, it wasn't me. The Dornish… were at the center of everything with Rhaegar, Elia and Lyanna." He took a breath. "It wouldn't be a far leap since the Tower of Joy was in the southern territory."

"And they had Kingsguard defending the tower. See Arthur Dayne died there defending the tower from Ned Stark and Howland Reed." Varys offered.

Daenerys stopped, her heart sinking like a stone. "Where does Howland Reed live?"

All of them stood in silence. "In Grey Watch." Missandei looked over at Grey Worm.

"He wants to take what is mine." Daenerys nearly howled.

"You know Jon Snow. If he wanted to be king he wouldn't have bent the knee." Tyrion immediately spoke. "He doesn't want it. He only has the word of his friend and the three-eyed Raven perhaps he just wished to know from someone that was there. No doubt I would have that same feeling should I have been born a bastard and then told of my high lineage."

"But Sansa would." Daenerys looked at Tyrion. "Your wife would want it."

"Sansa Stark is not my wife, and I doubt she would be anyone's wife ever again. She wants a free north, when we have defeated Cersei or got her to bent the knee we can worry about what happens next and build a better world. If Jon is still lord warden in the north we will have a good relationship with the North. Should his parentage be claimed public or not." Tyrion tried his best to compose himself.

"The Martell girl has offered me her brother for a husband and set her eyes on Jon," Daenerys admitted, she hated this feeling, but he had given her wise counsel in the past. "I don't understand his hesitation our line has always married into each other for hundreds of years."

"But he is a Stark. He may have Targaryen blood in him but all he has known is the North and the Starks. Give him time, your grace. He is a good man." Varys replied. "I'm not sure any of the Stark children would enter any relationship with a neighbor at this time. Their wounds from the Boltons are still fresh, as well as the Lannisters." Tyrion looked at his friend.

"The North Remembers the Red Wedding my lady. They won't approach anything without caution." Tyrion added.

"Jon bent the knee to you, your grace," Missandei interrupted. "He has been loyal to your cause and has pledged his men against the wishes of his family and he did it publicly. I doubt he would go through all that if he didn't believe in you."

"If he… ever betrays you. I will kill him." Grey Worm replied, "and then I will kill anyone who allowed it to happen."

She hoped her advisors heard. Daenerys was not her father and she would not fall to the same madness as him.

"My queen." Tyrion's voice came out like a whisper in a song. "While he is your nephew… he could also be your heir."

"He has a stronger claim to the throne." Daenerys walked past them and looked out at the water. "A dragon follows him just as I. You know the stories of the last dance of dragons. The reds and the greens and the divide it caused this country and the pain that followed it. They'll bow to him because I am a woman just as they ignored a dragon queen before. Would your people have bowed to your niece when your nephew was still alive?"

There was the small shuffle of feet and she found him next to her, with those sad eyes he had shown her all those years ago. How long had it been since he had come into her household? She had stopped counting all the turns of the moon. "We will never let anyone feed you to a dragon as they did Rhaenyra. I swear it." Tyrion spoke softly to her. "Your grace, we have a war to prepare for. Once the crown is won I suggest we play a game with the high lords of Westeros."

Daenerys turned to him and looked at him. "What kind of game?"

"The one we spoke about in Mereen. Marriage is a way to grow alliances. When I was the hand to Joffrey I had promised Marcella to different Lords and Princes. From what I understand my niece was very happy in Dorne when the time came and her Prince was quite fond of her. We will find a way to forge an alliance that doesn't remove you from what you've fought for. What you've wanted for so long."

"Who would you suggest?" Daenerys turned back to the table.

"Lord Snow, if we can convince him. He might take time." Tyrion shrugged. "It would tie the north to you through a pact of marriage."

"There is also Lord Arryn of the Vale who has come of age nicely I hear. He also is tied to the Riverlands and the North. A cousin of the Starks and the Tullys. There is Quentyn in the south in Dorne… which would cement a powerful alliance as they still have a majority of their soldiers battle-ready.. and after the deaths of the Taryls there is still the son still alive named Sam who has not yet married. Or even Lord Baratheon who travels with the North Men." Varys listed.

"You would need to actually legitimize him once we take King's Landing, and he would need to be educated in the ways of a Lord, but it could also see as you offering peace and be symbolic of moving forward in your history." Tyrion offered. "We also were responsible for the death of the rest of the Taryl's. We would have to be careful with them in case they wanted revenge. Even if the current man who could hold the lordship would let it go… we still have to deal with the wildling that follows him and rumors say he loves her as any wife. But Lord Gendry-"

"There would be strange optics though, but that marriage might appeal to the small folk since he was one of them before you gave him a title and his family name. He is a good man from what I understand." Varys continued. "Although, my spiders told me he had a taste for Wolves."

"Which one?" Tyrion looked at him and reached out to grab the wine.

It was Missandei who laughed first and whatever that had taken root in Daenerys' heart seemed to break as she looked at them all. Gossiping like maids at a wedding. "Perhaps I just marry Yara and Westeros will have two Queens."

"And the villagers would rejoice, plus you would have an island." Tyrion poured her a glass of Dornish wine.

"We would have to rid ourselves of Euron Greyjoy first." Varys frowned.

"Perhaps we capture him and I give him to Yara as a wedding present?" Daenerys retorted.

"She might go conquer Essos for you with such a gift." Tyrion made her smile.

"You could always marry Tyrion." Varys pointed out. "He is an eligible man who may inherit Lanisport."

"Oh, don't remind me and I've had my fill of marriages." Tyrion drank. "But they do say the third is the charm. I wouldn't be a good political alliance. Only the brothels speak well of me and perhaps a sellsword or two."

Daenerys laughed and it almost shook her body. She reached out and touched Melisandre's hand. She turned to her hand of the Queen. "I do not wish any sellsword or slave to fight for me. I want them to fight for me if they chose me."

"Your grace," Tyrion's face changed and she looked at it. She took the contours of his cheeks and the way his eyebrows raised and even after all this time she wondered if he never knew how to see the good before him.

"I am giving them the choice that Aegon did not. They could have bowed and asked their freedom later, as she did. They were given a choice my ancestors never thought to give. I would have them follow me or die as they wish." Daenerys retorted. "They can die in their old world or live in my new one."

"But then-" Tyrion tried.

"We cannot afford to stay in the past. Slavery in Westeros and Essos will end. I command it to be so. This rabble between houses must end. I know it so. The world is changing my hand, let us change with it." Daenerys said firmly, and she knew in her heart that her words should be made law.

"It will take time your grace," Varys was the one who spoke then, drawing her attention to her. "We are not like those of slavers bay where they are fit to masters that break them in, hard," Varys promised. "I was a slave once across the sea."

"Lord Varys," Daenerys began. "Should you have been a lord across the seas that opened their gates to me.. I would have seen you rewarded."

"Would it have been locked in a vault, your grace? I hear such things had happened. Would it have been nailed to spikes along the road?" Varys stared at her in a way she was grateful for.

"They were bad men," Daenerys replied. "They deserved justice."

"But what will you do when justice doesn't compliment the reality? What if it comes to hurt Missandei," he looked over at the girl she had been with for years and it burned inside her as the spider talked. "What would you do if it was Jon Snow himself?"

"Did you tell him?" She pursed her lips.

"I assure you, your grace, that all the information you have been given is true. I never knew until the information was divulged." Varys told her. "The seven kingdoms need someone that was softer than Stannis and stronger than Tommen, my queen. When I journeyed here and to you, that was at the forefront of my mind. Do not give in to the paranoia that your father did."

"The ones you whispered in his ears?" She asked without preamble.

"Did not of you suspect," They turned to the door where the Princess of Dorne looked at them as she opened it. "That perhaps my father knew all along? Since Ashara Dayne threw herself off the tower? Since our Arthur Dayne died at the Tower of Joy? Would we not have protected the heir to the realm to our last breath after we finally bowed? Our people have known. It is why we taught vengeance through fire and blood."

"Arianne," Daenerys breathed.

"My queen." She looked at Daenerys and bowed. "I meant what I've said. In Dorne, our queens have every right to claim their titles. You are heir to the crown. If you approve the marriage I will give your nieces and nephews to inherit, but you will be our Sovereign. I swear it by the gods old and new."

"How did you-" Daenerys began.

"Of the meeting? You need better guards. The wolf girl killed the last two I sent to the north. They either love her or die in Winterfell. I think she might have bewitched them," Arianne walked into the meeting room, her hips swaying. "All hail the queen of the seven kingdoms. Daenerys Targaryen."

"You proposed marriage to Jon." Daenerys looked at the woman.

"I did. I was promised a true blood prince, and I mean to collect. In Dorne, women have the right to rule just as much as the opposite sex. Should you need him to pump heirs in you we can reach an agreement. Your family dishonored and sent most of mine to the death. I do not hold bad blood, but the warden of the south with the heir to the throne at my side… well, that just seems natural. I trust you know how fertile my family is. Uncle Oberyn was up to eight bastards by the time of his death at the mountain. For me to bring my entire armies on King's Landing I would also ask for his head. I heart your fer-"

"What if we cannot give you your wish?" Tyrion interrupted her. His eyes flitting between the two.

"Then a seat on the council. Outside of Aegon and his sisters would this be the first woman to help rule?" Arianne gave them a smile that could melt ships.

Daenerys was a dragon, she smiled to herself. A dragon does not yield. "Princess. Visenya never yielded. I would ask you, Princess Arianne, to remain on my small council. Once the war is won I will find you a suitable position. Visenya should have.."

"She should have been queen or even good queen Alysanne." Arianne sighed. "I mean to not make things difficult. Had Marcella of house Lannister assumed the throne I would do for her what I am doing now. You are not less a ruler for not being born without a dick. Honestly, they are mostly disappointing. Had Alysanne ascended or Rhaenya we would have not been where we are now. "

Silence followed, all of her commanders waiting for her on how to respond. Daenerys smiled, thinking to a Kraken she met long ago. "You wish for a marriage that is not mine to give but I would like to count you amongst my friends. If Jon-"

"No marriage then?" Arianne replied. Arianne did her best impression of a lordling no doubt. Daenerys was tired of the lordlings of Westeros. They were not like her people in Essos. . It was something that reminded her of when she first stepped into Illyrio's home. The pomp and circumstance of it all.

"My brother is a bachelor. Terribly shy thing. Never even bedded a whore. Seven hells know they might get their monies worth. He is sweet and kind. And should you marry him that is your choice, And we are family, your grace." Arianne reached out and held her hand.

"Perhaps," Tyrion interrupted them. "We can discuss the rest of this AFTER have won the war. Marriage is complicated and requires much more of pacts and the septs, and our city is still rebuilding theirs after that tragic accident last year when it exploded."

"Tyrion is right," Daenerys looked at Arianne. "We can discuss marriage after we have taken the red keep and king's landing. I would not want to fail a potential suitor, but he must understand that I am to rule."

"Of course, why would I keep him in the south to think otherwise?" Arianne winked.

* * *

"The Scorpions have had their construction finished on the fleet, my Queen." Qyburn found her in the king's chambers. The Mountain following her every step.

"Good, once that pirate inspects them have him sent to my chambers." Cersei looked over at the fallen maester. "We should tell him about how Yara Greyjoy had retaken the iron islands."

Qyburn sighed. "I cannot believe that a man of his reputation would allow his own home to go unprotected."

"Only an idiot would do that," Cersei gave him a small smile.

"Terribly dreadful that the few loyal castellans fell while he was away and the others immediately joined the Greyjoy woman the minute she hit the beach." Qyrbun gave her a small grin.

"Absolutely dreadful I must say, terrible luck." Cersei turned back to her wine. "Has the construction begun on the walls?"

"Yes, my lady, stores of Wildfire have been placed, as well as pitch. Commander Strickland would wish to speak to you about the placement of his troops." Qyburn replied.

"After my audience with my beloved betrothed, I will speak to the captain separately." Cersei issued orders. "And the small folk?"

"They have been hearing stories of what the dragon queen has done abroad in Essos. Men placed upon stakes on the roads too Yunkai. It is a dreadful business. Killing all of the Khals and sacking cities and converting them to her savage ways." Qyburn's little spiders had begun to pay off she thought to herself.

"I am so ashamed she has landed on our shores. We must keep our people safe. Invite them into the keep, we have ample towers. Have them stay in our guest rooms and the safety of these walls." Cersei sighed and stood up walking towards her solar. She thought of the map in her head. Where Rhaegar had died on the trident. She wondered what it would have been had she married him. If he had ever been the singer that he was proclaimed. If he had been as kind. If Robert hadn't shattered the dragon with his hammer. Even then it would have all fallen without a lion at the helm, without her father and her… brother. The one that left to her to the north to duty and honor. She wondered if he was returning to her. If the wolves would let him. He had no place in the north. In the cold. He belonged to her. They were born together. They would die together. "Summon Euron to me."

* * *

"The Scorpions have had their construction finished on the fleet, my Queen." Qyburn found her in the king's chambers. The Mountain following her every step.

"Good, once that pirate inspects them have him sent to my chambers." Cersei looked over at the fallen maester. "We should tell him about how Yara Greyjoy had retaken the iron islands."

Qyburn sighed. "I cannot believe that a man of his reputation would allow his own home to go unprotected."

"Only an idiot would do that," Cersei gave him a small smile.

"Terribly dreadful that the few loyal castellans fell while he was away and the others immediately joined the Greyjoy woman the minute she hit the beach." Qyrbun gave her a small grin.

"Absolutely dreadful I must say, terrible luck." Cersei turned back to her wine. "Has the construction begun on the walls?"

"Yes, my lady, stores of Wildfire have been placed, as well as pitch. Commander Strickland would wish to speak to you about the placement of his troops." Qyburn replied.

"After my audience with my beloved betrothed, I will speak to the captain separately." Cersei issued orders. "And the small folk?"

"They have been hearing stories of what the dragon queen has done abroad in Essos. Men placed upon stakes on the roads too Yunkai. It is a dreadful business. Killing all of the Khals and sacking cities and converting them to her savage ways." Qyburn's little spiders had begun to pay off she thought to herself.

"I am so ashamed she has landed on our shores. We must keep our people safe. Invite them into the keep, we have ample towers. Have them stay in our guest rooms and the safety of these walls." Cersei sighed and stood up walking towards her solar. She thought of the map in her head. Where Rhaegar had died on the Trident. She wondered what it would have been had she married him. If he had ever been the singer that he was proclaimed. If he had been as kind. If Robert hadn't shattered the dragon with his hammer. Even then it would have all fallen without a lion at the helm, without her father and her… brother. The one that left to her to the north to duty and honor. She wondered if he was returning to her. If the wolves would let him. He had no place in the north. In the cold. He belonged to her. They were born together. They would die together. "Summon Euron to me."

* * *

The lion hated the way the Kraken swaggered into her apartments as they belonged to him and him alone. They were hers. They would always be Cersei Lannister's to the end of her days. She would never be cowed by a husband ever again. "My love," she reached out for him, her hand bracing on his shoulders. This was a dance she had known well. One she had tried to teach the little red wolf. One she never learned from what she heard.

"Once I bring you the head of a dragon can we wed? I know you grow full of me in your belly and we'll have princes and princesses enough to fill this castle." Euron leaned in and he smelt of piss and sweat.

"Drinking in town again, my Kraken?" She sighed trying to not let the disgust show on her face.

"My bride shuns my bed again and what am I to think? Has she taken up with the monster? Only a cock of that size can satisfy her?" Euron whispered into her ears and she could feel her eyes almost roll into the back of her head.

"Euron, that is no way to speak as the future prince consort of the seven kingdoms." Cersei chided him as if she was a little girl again. Men seemed to love that sort of thing.

"King of the Seven Kingdoms." He interrupted.

"Consort." She bared her teeth this time. Cersei was a queen. "I am to rule and we will unit a kingdom."

"I want to be king." Euron held her arms tight.

"We have to win the war first, my love." She gazed at him fondly as she used to gaze at Jaimie and Robert at the beginning of the marriage.

"Aye, we do. We finished hitching the scorpions to my ships. No dragon or dragon bitch will get by us. We'll stop them at the blackwater."

"My love," She interrupted "Qyburn have heard back from his little spiders about a plan that might be to our advantage. They aren't heading here directly. They are at Dragonstone a small retinue from Dorne has landed."

"Who whispers such things?" Euron leaned, his eyes wild. It would almost thrill her if she could stomach his breath.

"My little spies. My whispers all throughout the kingdom." Cersei grinned leaning close. "Do you not know the lion has claws? And they are as long and sharp as any wolves."

"But they never reach the sea or the sky, pet." Euron smiled and she almost wanted to stab him with all that she was. Push him out of the window like poor sweet Tommen. Poison him like Joffrey and Marcella with a kiss or drink of absolute sweetness that you wouldn't feel it until it tore at your throat and a mother watched them died.

"But I will rule them just the same, my Kraken." She smiled like a woman in love. "I have a plan and I shall wait for you to return… gazing out to the sea until I see the ships in the harbor with their sails proud and I will meet you at the shore to crown you as king and husband. From that day until the rest of my days."

"Who do I have to kill?" Euron replied into her lips.

"A dragon, my love. They will write songs of you." She kissed him drawing blood from his lips.

* * *

Meera found him in the Godswood. She had to wonder how long he had been out here, or if this was just where he always found himself. She had said goodbye to the boy she thought was Bran in a tower a long time ago. "Three-eyed Raven." She spoke to alert him, not that he didn't know already.

"I saw my sister greet you." He responded, not turning around.

"She isn't your sister anymore," Meera replied unwavering as she walked towards him, her footprints crunching in the small bit of snow left on the ground.

"Our blood is the same." Bran didn't turn. "She is still my sister even if my mind has changed. Even though I am not what I was before."

"Bran died in that tree, didn't he?" Meera asked.

"Yes and no." The one who wore Bran's skin turned and looked at her. "We are one and the same, and he knew the cost."

"You won against the night king." Meera sighed.

"We did." Bran looked at her with his strange eyes. With something deep inside of him that didn't seem natural. "We wouldn't have won without what you did Meera. Thank you."

"You aren't Bran. You owe me nothing." Meera tried not the hate and anger boil inside her.

"He might have been king one day." The thing known as Bran looked at her. "He would have wanted you to be his queen or his lady."

"That was before you," Meera said, she was a bog man. She was not afraid of a raven. "I came-"

"For closure." The thing smiled. "You are the only one now in seven kingdoms and perhaps the world that knows the truth of it."

"Would you wish me dead then?" Meera asked.

"Never. Bran would never allow it. If he had been able to walk he would have given everything to save your brother. Let Jojen become me. Let Hodor become me as long as you still looked at him. He didn't know what it meant. It was too young to know it was love." The Three-Eyed Raven smiled at her with that twisted smile. The one that was not the boy she had traveled with. "Do you wish to kill me?"

"No," Meera replied.

"What is it that you came here to say?" He asked, simply.

"Is there any way we can get him back?" Meera almost cried.

"Who?"

"Brandon Stark." Meera spat. "Bran who was crippled. Bran who was kind. Bran who could have been a great lord and man."

"But he couldn't walk." The creature inside Bran whispered.

"Walking does not make a man great." Meera stood fast, Meera stood strong.

"He would have given this region to his sister regardless. The Starks are breaking away from tradition and he would have known Sansa would be a good-"

"That doesn't matter. Bran could have been just as he was. He could have been brilliant and kind and-"

"With you." The creature offered.

"That is not a decision we ever get to make now." Meera walked in front of him. IN front of this being filled of darkness and ravens and prophecy. "He had a life. A life he could have had any way he wanted it once this was done and over. Why are you still here?"

"Because Bran Stark died with the Night King. The world doesn't know it, and they never will. Bran gave the last of him to ensure his sister entered that grove to stab her dagger deep in the heart of the Night King." Bran looked away from her and into the trees.

"Then why are you here?" Meera backed away as the thing inside Bran looked at her.

"To hold on." He said.

"But you aren't him," Meera replied.

"Nor are the rest of the Starks. Sansa isn't the girl that left. Arya became no one. Jon Snow became the heir of ice and fire. Robb Stark became the king in the north. Rickon.. Rickon was a wildling for more years than he ever was a Stark. Did we all come back as we should have been?"

"The heir of ice and fire?" Meera interrupted.

"He doesn't want it. He never has and never will. It will help breed a new world. One that would not have happened without his choices. We would have never won without him… or the dragon." Bran said as if he was reciting a tale that has long since past.

"You know why I've come then?" Meera asked, looking at the tree.

"Yes, you want to end it all," Bran replied. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. But I do ask you go inside… have some lemon cakes with my sister she is bereft of company since they journeyed south. Her knight pines but there is more darkness to come before spring finally cracks open at our dawn."

"You knew I came to kill you?" Meera looked at him, this strange thing in front of her. He wasn't Bran. He'd never be Bran.

"I knew from the moment you chose to come north. I would give you my life to set you peace. Bran would. He loved you as much as a boy can love anything. Have lemon cakes and plan for a future fo the north."

"He loved me?" Meera said softly almost into the bark of the tree.

"If he were ever king, you would be the queen he chose. He loved you. He loved Hodor and Jojeen. They were important to him. If I do not do well by you I think it would break his heart and leave us both to dust before the end of it all."

* * *

The Iron fleet raised their sails in the Blackwater. It's Kraken sails proud and bold against the sky. Cersei should have seen them off, she thinks as she walks deeper into the keep towards the Iron Throne. She has an audience to keep as she walks in to see Harry Strickland. "I am told your Golden Company is worth all the money in all of Westeros." She gives him a kind smile.

"Yes, your grace," Harry replies. "We are at your service."

"I heard your company has been the fist of the iron bank." Cersei looked him over. He was handsome, with the look of something she liked. A bit of him reminded her of Jaimie. As much as Lancel did, anyway. A poor copy to a masterpiece.

"You have problem seen many battles, Captain." She sat on the throne. It was just as uncomfortable as she had been told. She heard stories about how Aerys had been riddled with wounds, but she was pristine and above such things. "What do you think we should do?"

"I am but a sellsword, your grace," Harry Strickland feigned. She knew a proud man when she saw him.

"Surely you have been privy to battles and sieges." Cersei sipped her wine and smiled.

"Never with dragons before, I am afraid." Harry gave her a smile that reminded her of boyish charm.

"I imagine no one would, none except our ancestors. When the Dragon comes regular battle tactics I feel won't be of use. I read the same books as my brothers. Even Tyrion, may the seven hells take him. The Targaryens didn't let any books live that explained how to fight them survive." Cersei spoke. "But I've read the stories, death from above. How the dragons danced."

"You have built those weapons on the ships and in the walls of the castle. I have had my men train with Lord Bronn until he left to be able to use such a weapon." Harry replied.

"They might be all that stands between us an annihilation. With your permission, I would have them built on your boats." Cersei smiled.

"We do not have any-" Harry began.

"I had my… beloved leave some for you. We will finish construction of them. Qyburn has some new ideas on how to improve the model. It will involve three men per scorpion to arm and reload." She explained. "You have to aim for the heart."


	6. From The Grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Northern army arrives at Dragonstone. Daenerys tries the prisoner and then finally seeks counsel from those she needs. Gendry tries to learn the ways of a lord with a mysterious soldier. Sansa receives an unexpected letter and plans to save her family. Tyrion receives an unexpected visitor and he plots to save his brother. Arianne makes a wish known, but what else is she planning as she swears fealty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologize for the lateness of this chapter. I had two major work events, moving, training a new employee, and some health things happen in quick succession. Then I decided to take the whole thing down to edit it and tighten it up. The next few chapters are written and going through edits I hope to be posting more. I want to get this done before NaNoWriMo this year.

The smell of the salt at Dragonstone was the same as the last time Jon was here. His army safety at rest on the shore behind him as he journeyed with Davos, Gendry, and a soldier down the long winding path to meet the Queen. The raven had arrived on the road. He was to meet her as he promised, but the vocation had changed. They had a new visitor and found a new alliance in the time he marched gone. She also made a point to mention a potential marriage match. The thought of it didn't sit well in his belly, although he had no right to claim it, or even give it breath or name.

"She seems to like her theatrics," Davos whispered to him as they saw Drogon soared around the keep.

Rhaegal sat down by the shore and he seemed to be looking at himself in the water with a curiosity. Jon smiled at the thought of the dragon, something tugged him to the green beast before him. Rhaegal looked up at Jon and made a noise that reminded him of Ghost. The dragon rose flew towards him faster than men could ride circling around him in the skies above.

"Someone is happy to see you." Davos quipped.

Gendry hung behind the two of them still shocked to see the great beasts in flight. He was still a small folk and all this was still as new to him as the dead had been. "They won't hurt you. Unless you make me mad." Jon laughed.

"Best not make you mad then," Gendry looked at the ground his face turning a different shade. He had seen that kind of look before. There was something to it, something he didn't know. He heard that he had eyes for someone at Winterfell. If it was one of his sisters, well it would not end well.

"C'mon, Lord Gendry." Davos smiled motioning him to follow. Down on the bridge to the castle where Tyrion Lannister waited for them as they had before. The knight behind them stood watching the dragon in flight.

"Lord Snow, Lord Gendry, Davos, Ser." Tyrion greeted them a few of the unsullied at his side.

"I hear we have company?" Jon asked.

"I'm sure our friend from Dorne would like to introduce herself. She has her grand ideas but we don't have much time when it comes to taking the south from my sister." Tyrion shrugged.  
"Wasn't it Ellaria Sand? I thought she disappeared after-" Jon scowled thinking of what he had been told.

"No, no one has seen hide or hair of Ellaria Sand since the Iron Fleet took her." Tyrion sighed. "Yara Greyjoy though... She has taken the Iron Islands and is sailing to us with the rest of the fleet to be able to fight the queen as she promised."

"Aye, a vow is important to keep." Jon nodded. "And the North is here as well."

"Ned Stark would be proud of you," Tyrion frowned thinking of the man who had gone south what felt like a lifetime ago. "For what it's worth-"

"That isn't all," Jon interrupted the hand of the queen. Jon swallowed. "We found him on the road, driving fast as if the dead had followed him from the north."

Cold iron must have gripped Tyrion as he found himself without words. His eyes wide, there was only one person everyone always walked around with words and him. "The Kings Road then? Bring that woman with him?" He looked at him, half with hope.

"No. He was alone." Jon sighed.

"That idiot." Tyrion spat. "Can I see him?"

"Jaimie killed three of my men who refused to let him cross the camp without speaking to a lord. He refused. They died." Jon tried to hide how he felt, how the betrayal ate at him. They had offered their home to him. "I promised I wouldn't kill him, but he is going before the Queen."

"She'll kill him. You know that." Tyrion replied. He could tell that he was trying to keep his voice calm. "Especially with the Dorne Princess here. Both of them want blood for their families."

"The Dorne Princess? I thought they were all dead?" Jon looked at the sea towards the south, towards the boat that carried the sun crest of Dorne.

"Doran Martell sent her and her brother across the sea. My father didn't stop the mountain." Tyrion's lips pursed together as he thought, wondered all the ways he might save the kingslayer.

"He fought with us Tyrion." Jon reminded him. "He didn't order their deaths. And Dany knows what he did."

"You say while he carries the blood of your men on his hands." Tyrion looked at Davos and Gendry who must have had faces that said they wanted to be anywhere else.

"M'lords," The short soldier drew their attention to them, the man had a strange face whose nose seemed too big for him. "The day will be drawing to a close soon. The men of the North will be resting over the night."

"Aye," Jon nodded.

"Lord Tyrion," Davos interrupted. "Never forget that Lord Snow knows how to make decisions with the blood of his brothers on his hands. We pray you never know what it is like."

"Such hostilities from the Onion Knight." Tyrion eyed him curiously. "You walk into a den of dragons and insult the Hand of the Queen?"

"What fire do you suppose is worse, Dragons or Wildfire?" Davos nodded at the others. "Does she have chambers prepared for us? We would do well to discuss the changes in the war campaign but a warm bed and full bullies might be needed first."

"Yes, as before." Tyrion nodded and led them forward. Jon couldn't help but notice the Imp's clenched fist as he did. He looked between his advisor and the man in front of him. Neither betrayed anything except for a moment. He wondered if this was what Sansa had been trying to train him for all along. She talked of a game of sorts and it killed the man he thought was his father.

"That could have gone better," Gendry whispered to Jon as they fell behind Tyrion. His voice dragged him from his thoughts and Jon had to wonder how many times Robert must have done that for Eddard.

"Could have gone worse. Glad I left Ghost back at camp…" Jon sighed. "Wonder what Ghost'll do knowing that he has to deal with a dragon that follows me around now."

"Like he doesn't know what to do with the female Dragon that does?" Gendry gave him a wide smile.

"It's not like that." Jon insisted as they followed Tyrion.

I've only been in love once, but I know what it looks like when people have those stupid moon eyes over a woman and you're lucky this one likes you back. You need better guards half of the castle saw her make her way to your rooms the night of the feast." Gendry replied with a smirk.

"And why did you think that, Lord Gendry? I'd expect Tormund to wait outside my quarters but.. you?" Jon asked making light of the subject.

The blacksmith shuffled on his feet, still uncomfortable with his title. "Well, I was drowning my sorrows with the Hound of all people and we watched her leave"

"The hound?" Jon sighed. "And what sorrows ailed you?"

"The kind of living, my Lord. Do I call you m'lord or my lord?" Gendry sighed.

"Davos?" Jon called. "Do I call Gendry my lord?"

"I believe so, my Lord." Davos laughed."My Gods would you all stop it," Gendry grumbled.

"And it was you, two merry men that went north of the wall, grabbed us a walker, and now we march south to fight my sister. The realm of men is definitely doomed." Tyrion grumbled as the large dark doors opened into the castle.

* * *

Ever since her brother's return to Winterfell, the sound of Ravens in flight took on another meaning to Sansa Stark of Winterfell. She had always had to wonder if they were her brother or messengers. Sansa took a drink of wine. It wasn't like with Cersei. She didn't imagine all the beasts in the dark circling her throat as she walked the halls of Winterfell as the night descended. She could hear the sounds of the castle. The sleeping guards, the breathing of those awake, and somewhere in there Bran would be watching like he always did.

Sansa had found herself quite taken with the girl who accompanied him north of the wall. There were hours they had spent with Meera telling her of what had befallen her brother and Honor. She mourned the gentle giant and Summer. She wondered if her brother felt the snap. In her dreams when she was a little girl she imagined it. How her father cut the throat of her beloved pet, how he would have been as kind as an unjust world could be.

Later she would wonder if the cut to her mother's throat was just as kind. She swallowed her hate, her tears, and she walked. Even in the darkness, she could hear Brienne and Podrick training. Her knight had been filled with fire since the Kingslayer left. She followed the noise where no doubt Podrick had finally parried Brienne's attack. She loved watching them fight. It was a sense of peace she never thought she'd have.

"M'lady," Samwell Tarly drew her thoughts from her knight and squire.

"Sam, please, you are family. Call me Sansa." She insisted.

"Sansa, there is a letter from Riverrun." If Sam was surprised by her face he had the kindness to not show it.

"From my Uncle?" She asked, imagining how Edmure Tully had been sitting there this entire time as guilty and useless as he should be.

"No, from the Blackfysh." Sam said softly.

"Brienne said he died." Sansa shot back immediately and reached for the letter.

"It's the seal of the Tullys no doubt. I read it. My lady. I wanted to make sure if it was news of… Ser Jaimie we would be able to prepare Ser Brienne." Sam offered.

"But it wasn't…" Sansa said thoughtfully.

"No, he wants to take back Riverrun now that the Lannisters are on the defense. It says he caught word that the Greyjoy Queen is heading towards Dragonstone to meet and join their fleet."

"They are still at Dragonstone?" Sansa said concerned. "It has been a month I would have assumed they would be marching on the capital. Bran has been insisting that he was safe."

"He is. My Lady… Sansa… may I ask something of you?" Sam whispered.

"Of course, Sam." She replied.

"Why is Lady Arya not here? I would have thought after saving the realm she might bask in some of the glory." Sam offered. "She disappeared a little bit after Jon did with Clegane."

"Maybe they ran off together." She shrugged and Sam smiled a bit. "My sister has always been strange."

"Did you send her after Jon?" He asked cautiously.

"I don't send or order Arya around. She chooses her own path." Sansa smiled thinking of her sister. The light that had been in her the days leading up to the seemed to have soured as the war with Cersei had approached. "But yes, she is following our brother."

"You don't trust the Dragon Queen do you?" He asked.

Sansa frowned. "I heard what happened to your family. Tyrion insisted it was because your father would not bow to her. She gave him a choice. He chose death. My family was not given the same choice in the Red Keep. They burned my grandfather alive and made my uncle watch until he choked."

"My brother didn't have to die with them." Sam insisted.

"No, he did not." Sansa sighed.

"But do you trust her?" Sam asked simply. There was no edge to it. He was not a man who could have survived in the capital.

"I trust my family. But…men do stupid things for love. It killed Robb. I don't want the same for Jon. She loves him.. But…" Sansa looked towards the north ahead of her with the cold winds.

"You know then," Sam replied.

"Yes." Sansa sighed.

"He promised you to secrecy too?" Sam asked.

"I already broke my promise. I told Tyrion who no doubt will tell Varys who may or may not whisper in Daenerys' ear. I'm not sure what kind of ruler she'll be. Will she be the loved Mhysa she was in the east or will she be the Tyrant who burned your brother? I'm giving us options." Sansa looked at the sparring knights before her.

"She won't forget a slight like that," Sam sighed and stood next to her. "Jon won't hate you for it, but I don't think he wants to be in command. He would be a better king than he thinks."

"No, she also won't forget my refusal to ally myself with her and for making her look weak and inconsiderate at the battle meeting," Sansa said honestly. "I fear she has all of the strength with no of the politics of the game. Lords and Ladies will bow because of fear, and fear is for the dark. Cersei rules with fear. The smallfolk were contemptuous when Joffrey took over. The food stocks low. Cersei doesn't have the numbers for a Siege, and with the High Garden storage burned to a crisp they won't have enough for one either."

"Jon never have enough time to really learn all those things either." He shrugged.

"Yes, but Jon has something Daenerys didn't have." Sansa looked at him. "Dragon blood in his veins or not he is part of our park. He is a Stark. He was born a Snow in the south but he is ours more than he was ever Targaryen. He is a child of the North, and the North Remembers."

"Would you lock him up, crown him king?" Sam mused.

"No, I'm not my father. I wouldn't have hidden him to himself." She watched Brienne parry. "I've seen what the south does to northern kings. Arya has. Bran has. They sewed my brother's head on his wolf."

"He was a good lord commander. He thought of the war of the Night King but not those around him which lead to him…" Sam sighed trying to draw her away from the atrocity. Instead, she focused on something else.

"She loves him. Family or not. It's all she has ever known. I think perhaps if we met in a different world we could have been friends. If I had been the ambassador to Dragonstone." Sansa mused.

"I doubt you would have convinced her to be honest, Sansa." She looked at him sharply. "Don't mean to take offense but you had not seen them at that point. How could you convince her that something you didn't see, that you didn't fight was real?"

"Because I believe Jon." Sansa retorted quickly.

"Aye, and this isn't because of you being a woman. I know enough women and Gilly who would throttle me if I said otherwise… but… Jon knew the true threat ever since he went north of the wall. I know Jon. It wasn't just him wooing her with that long hair and brooding." Sam offered.

"It was that earnestness he has. He has always had that since he was a child. I was insufferable then," Sansa looked back at the snow as they walked into the courtyard and saw the lady knight and pod sparring.

"You were a child," Sam added. "My brother wasn't the best to me when he was a child either."

"Family is complicated, isn't it?" Sansa smiled softly. "I hear that there will be another wildling or nights watch south of the wall shortly after the snow stops falling."

"We would like to stay here if we could. I know the North doesn't take kindly to Wildlings but after everything," Sam asked.

"This can be your home. If you want it. The dragon may change its mind especially since there is no lord in the reach anymore." She offered. "You would be next in line."

"I don't want it." Sam immediately said and the two of them started laughing. The sound was so strange as it echoed off the stone around them bringing Brienne's and Podrick's attention to the two.

"You have to add a little more brooding into it," Sansa added as she looked down at her knight. "I suppose I should provide Podrick with honors and a knighthood after him battling the dead. But…"

"What are you going to do my lady?" Sam asked watching her face.

"I am a Stark, but I also have the blood of the Tullys and their words are Family. Duty. Honor. While my uncle and the Blackfysh hid during the war of the dead he seeks our aid now. I'll send a garrison south with some of the remaining men and women who have earned their stripes to aid them. Helmed by Brienne of Tarth. I trust her more than anyone."

"Then who would protect you?" Sam asked.

"I believe we have Sam the Slayer in our keep, and soon to be Ser Podrick Payne. My brother is also a three-eyed raven any moment there is a decision made he would tell me. I think I still have a part to play in the story. I'll have Meera summoned to me in the morning to discuss more aspects of the raven that she may be more familiar with." Sansa frowned.

"Did you know I met them once on their way to the wall? They were so young then. We all were." Sam replied.

"Bran hasn't told me that story," Sansa said. "When I was young I thought I was to marry a prince and have lots of little perfect princesses and princes for Joffrey. I told my mother it was everything I ever wanted… but I would give anything back to that day before everyone left. To see Robb and Rickon again. To see the men they would become without a war. To see my father smile and have my mother braid my hair."

"I missed being little with Dickon. Even with his teasing, he had always been kind to me. Even after my father threatened to kill me." Sam whispered. "My sister was always sweet and would pretend we were sisters. I know it sounds silly, but she would try to put ribbons in my hair."

"I had a dire wolf once. Her name was Lady. She was kind and she was good, and when I was little I would weave ribbons into her hair and she kept me warm at night with my dreams." Sansa looked at Pod, who stared at her with confusion. "Then the court came, and then everything after. For a long time I thought there was no such thing as true knights and heroes but in this age of dragons and monsters and kings and queens… there are. Brienne is the truest knight of the seven kingdoms, my brother Jon is a hero come back from the dead. My sister is the hero of Winterfell. My brother is a three-eyed raven… and next to them I'm just Sansa. And it was more than anything I could have ever wanted, except my family being alive. I've always thought about titles and destiny… but home... with the snow falling is and my family and people... is more than any silly dream. I will defend it. For my family."

"And you won't have to do it alone. What if she comes here when its all done? What if she views us a threat like she did my brother?" Sam asked.

"We pray it doesn't come to that. I've already planted the seeds if it does. I read my histories I remember the last time the dragons danced in the stories. I don't want her to die. I just want to protect my family." Sansa replied swallowing. "And it starts with saving Riverrun. If things are to go...poorly I want my family at my brother's back and Arya in the shadows."

"Arya is there to protect him then?" Sam sounded relieved. "I had worried you sent her to kill the queen."

"No. Daenerys could be the best in her family. Her temper and her comments during her time here do lead to some concern. Her complete disregard for people who don't follow her immediately… She could be a good queen. I've seen people who could have been the greatest queens Westeros has ever known die in a Sept." Sansa explained.

"The Sept of Baelor? Queen Margaery?" Sam looked at her.

"Anyone who thinks that was an accident is an idiot." Sansa breathed. "Cersei hated Margaery from the moment she came into King's Landing. Margaery was the only one who played the game at a better level than she did. I miss Margaery. Everything changed when she came to court. Joffrey didn't torture me as much anymore. The city was covered in flowers, and she was kind to me. They knew what a piece on the board I was and instead of cruelty offered me roses."

"She sounds lovely." Sam looked at her, but she looked at the snow on the ground and her knights fighting.

"All roses are lovely until they wilt and prick you with their thorns." Sansa sighed. "Whenever I played a little game or when I find myself drinking too much I think of her, not Cersei Lannister. She would have done well by this country. I like to think. Tommen was bendable but a good man. Margaery played the game, and Margaery died. And I miss her. In all of the south, she was the only one that made me feel safe."

"Jon Snow did that for me in the Watch. They are the ones who never know the strength of their kindness." Sam replied.

"No, they do not. But we never stop being grateful for them." Sansa smiled at the thought of Jon the once was and possibly future King and the dead queen of the seven kingdoms. She wished to the gods old and new to keep her brother safe. To allow them a chance at peace once all was said and done.

* * *

Dragonstone wasn't as she imagined it. It was dark and miserable. Arya longed for Winterfell as she followed behind Gendry, Davos, and Jon as they were lead to their chambers. She hadn't anticipated him being here. The eyes of the face she wore didn't have the best eyesight. The entire ordeal was so frustrating as she tried to read their faces. That is what happens when she plays the game of faces with the dead she figured.

"Here is your chamber, Lord Snow. The queen is sending someone to retrieve my brother. Thank you for that. Turns out she wants another trial since this time it will be in her favor." Tyrion swallowed.

"I'm sorry. She is our Queen." Jon replied averting his eyes. Bran did that, she thought, only when he was lying. Arya studied Jon's face and followed behind them in the dark.

The Imp leaned forward and whispered something she couldn't hear to her brother and Jon recoiled as if he had been slapped. Watching as the Imp angrily walked away she wanted to go after him, slip her sword, her teeth into him and rip him apart for even harming her brother in the slightest. She sighed and thought of Sansa and the composure she had to keep.

This was not about revenge. This was about keeping the pack safe.

The uncomfortable Targaryen guard turned to Gendry and she tried not to look at him. She really did, the way his muscles moved in a way she was entirely too familiar with. Davos went after Jon. Gendry turned to her… well him and nodded for him to follow him. "I suppose we get the next one before I send you back to camp then?" He asked.

"Yes, M'lord." She said in a strange voice and it was worth it for how entirely uncomfortable he looked. She didn't smile but she thought about it. She wondered what he would think if he knew it was here behind this face.

The guard led them to the last room. "And this is your room, Lord Baratheon. The Hand has... Companions nearby should you need them. He doesn't use them as often as his reputation says he does… though…. But I hear they are quite grand ladies."

She wanted to stab this guard already.

"I'm- I'm good. Thank you.. Uh—er.. Dismissed?" Gendry replied watching the guard shuffle away stifling a laugh. His face was entirely red.

Gendry let out a frustrated groan. "Do not dare tell anyone about that." He turned to the guard. "I mean.. I'm no good at this."

"What kind of lord do you want to be?" Arya asked.

"A good one." He replied immediately. "I didn't really want to be one at all and I did it for a stupid reason. But I can't go back now unless the dragon loses so… might as well be a good one."

"M'lord." She bowed and made way to leave.

"How should I have referred to them?" He asked.

She turned in this face and watched him carefully. "I could get killed for the way you are speaking to me. A guard on the same level as a lord."

"I don't- I won't." Gendry blathered through his apologies. "I promise by the gods old and new I won't tell anyone. And please don't…. I know I was a small folk only a few moons ago even being a king's bastard. I just… I don't know how to do this. You've done this longer… well, guard that is. I mostly just used my hammer. The actual blacksmith hammer, not my…"

If one could inherit the seven kingdoms by keeping a straight face this moment would have given it to her. "M'lord, when you are finished with your guards you can say 'that will be all' you are above them now and their use is done."

"Is that what I should say to you when we are done with this conversation?" Gendry asked.

"Yes, m'lord." She offered.

"Lord Snow says I should write to his sister and learn all curtesy from Lady Sansa." Gendry sat on the edge of the bed, frustrated.

"Lady Sansa of Winterfell would be a great tutor in the ways of court, m'lord. She is my Lady as Lord Snow is my Lord. He was our King once too. I'm just a bastard from Stoneyshores." The face she swore gave him a smile, but he looked at her eyes searching for something unnameable.

"What is your name Snow?" Gendry asked a slight grin to it.

"Eddard," Arya replied thinking of the boy in the camp. "Mum named me after the Lord of Winterfell before he died."

Something flashed through his eyes. Something that reminded her of a night she didn't regret but wished she did. She thought of him on bended knee and the regret and anger boiling inside. "A friend of mine knew him. He was a good man. I met him once. He was kind to me in a way few Lords were. You're mum named you well." Gendry said softly, the words releasing from him in a way that swept into her and she wanted to cry. She hadn't wanted to cry since she got stabbed by the Waif. Since she tried to bury needle and her family deep inside.

"I like to think so. The north is fond of House Stark." She replied simply. "Even being bastard born."

"Yeah," Gendry gave her a small smile. He was so open who he was, his feelings. He couldn't hide them. She wondered how she had not noticed before.

"Is there anything else I can help you with m'lord?" She said thinking of Sansa and all her curtesy. She wondered what he would do if she ripped her face off before him. If he knew who he really was speaking to.

"Thank you, that will be all." Gendry stood straight trying the words on for the first time.

"There you go, sound like a proper lord now." Arya smiled at him. "Even if you eat the bread and meat of her hall be on your guard."

"But I'm a Lord sworn to her service." Gendry looked confused and she wanted to kiss him for his sweetness. His lack of understanding of how the game is played. She wished Sansa would be here to teach him. She didn't want Gendry's head on a spike or at the whims of someone who would hurt him. She couldn't understand why he made such a stupid decision to agree with what the dragon queen wanted.

All of it means nothing without you echoed in her ears. Here she wasn't Arya Stark of Winterfell. Here she was Eddard Snow. Here she was wearing her father's name lying as he had for a while to get close enough to keep someone safe. She loved her brother. He was the only one who looked at her like she was something outside of odd. The ache she had tried to fill with death and vengeance still burned inside her.

Then she came home and it was Sansa who opened her arms and loved her. Who smiled when she saw the broken pieces of her, the scary monster she had to be too survive. The one who still held her whole and whispered about Baelish and how afraid she had truly been when it came to her. Who told her about Bran and Jon and meant every word of it.

She had told her the story then. Arya's own song only sung to the ears of one person. Perhaps the faceless would come for her one day. She would make sure anyone they sent would make an end.

"You are, but m'lord you must start thinking like one. I'm a bastard from nowhere, I cannot offer more than that. You are a Lord. Seek a Lord's guidance." She replied evenly.

Gendry held her gaze. She wondered if he saw her, really saw her. In her grey eyes that no face could replace. The ones that he stared into that night. She wondered if he knew. "Thank you," He said slowly like he had seen a ghost. "That will be all."

"As m'lord commands." She bowed in the body and face of another and took her leave.

* * *

It was the middle of the night when Tyrion wandered back into the hall. He couldn't sleep. His brother was at the North men's camp as a prisoner. He remembered the last time this happened and his father would tear Westeros apart to get him back. He wanted to do the same. The last bit for the only person who truly loved him. Instead, he was left in these halls. Alone. With nothing but his thoughts for comfort.

Tyrion knew Jon Snow would not let anyone fall to harm in his care. It did not cease his pacing. If Brienne could woo the Lady Stark to her side when it came to his brother he could get a Dragon to see it. Jaimie killed her father but she knew now fully what her father had been. Tyrion had killed his father. He breathed and smelt the salt air. She would understand. She would have to. She is not a monster that would burn them all to rule the ashes.

She had a kindness to her. The one that drew him to her in the first place. She was scared and alone. How had he been when he had first gone to King's Landing? Who would he have been if he didn't try to go north to taste the northern women? If Jaimie didn't insist on it and had Cersei relent. So many choices in his life were determined by his brother. Why would this be any different?

An unsullied walked towards him. "Your brother is being brought into the keep as the lords were shown to their rooms. The Queen has requested your presence."

"Did she wake the other lords for this?" He asked.

"No, she felt this was a personal matter." The unsullied replied.

"Wake them, bring Princess Arianne as well. If she is to try anyone it should be in front of a full council." He searched the man's face. "Things aren't like they were in Mereen. She would execute a man without a fair trial. It would alienate some of the lords regardless of how they felt about the man. The absolution is a terrible look on a queen. I merely hope to save her from that."

"Follow me." The unsullied lead him forward. He felt like he was in chains along with his brother.

* * *

Brienne had been invited into Sansa's personal quarters many times. She saw the Lady of Winterfell playing with a scroll that laid in her hands. She was anxious as she turned to her. "Ser Brienne," Lady Sansa said immediately. It was something the knight was getting used to still. It made her heartache with acute pain and pride.

"My lady," she bowed.

"I have a task for you, I want you to take whatever troops from the Vale will assist you and half the men who are still stationed here at Winterfell. I have already spoken with the heads of households to make sure you will have enough supplies to last the journey there and a few months siege if necessary."

"My Lady?" Brienne looked confused.

"I asked you once to look for the Blackfysh and you did so," Sansa sighed in her chair, "Now I ask you to aid him and return Tully's rightful heir to Riverrun."

"The Blackfysh is dead." Brienne searched Sansa's face for a jape. Others had always made fun of her, but never the winter lady in front of her.

"No, he is not." She handed her the letter.

"Should we trust him? He did abandon you." Brienne tried not to sound as angry as she felt as she looked at the words in front of her. From the careful penmen ship and back to the Lady of Winterfell.

"I am a Stark. I will always be a Stark. My mother was a Tully and their words were Family. Duty. Honor. I have not forgotten them." Sansa stood. "Very few knew about my uncle's proclivities. He wasn't like Loras or Renly who didn't do a good job of hiding it. For him to reveal that..."

"Why do this now?" Brienne stood and ran her hand down Oathkeeper.

"Cersei will be drawing a majority of her troops to protect the capital. The garrison at Riverrun should be weakening with the men provided and the troops from Riverrun we can root them out." Sansa grinned. "I always wanted to be there when they killed Cersei, but... this will be my gift to my brother."

"Will you be joining us, Lady Stark?" Brienne felt hesitant to leave her. She had not imagined going south again so soon and not without fulfilling her oath.

"No." Sansa walked towards the window and looked out at the evening snow that still danced down from the dark skies. "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell."

"I swore to your mother-" Brienne interjected.

"I will be safe. My brother is here… and so is Meera Reed. There are the wildlings up North that will come if I ask them too." Sansa didn't turn.

"They followed your brother," Brienne responded.

"Who do you think has been sending them supplies as they set up at Castle Black?" Sansa sighed.

Brienne pursed her lips. "I do not feel comfortable leaving you again my lady.

"You serve me, but you are also my friend. You are a Knight worthy of leading and following. I have a request before you leave. Could we knight Ser Payne? His display during the long night has earned it. I will be safe. My brother will protect me." Sansa turned and looked at her, taking her large hands in her small ones.

"And Meera?" Brienne held her hands fast.

"Will protect me from my brother if need be," Sansa replied with unease. "He would never harm me, or Arya, or Jon... I feel each day a bit of his humanity slips further and further away."

"Once I liberate Riverrun then what?" Brienne held her eyes.

"I want you to march." Lady Stark stood. "I want you to go join the rest of the Winterfell Troops.."

"You are protecting your brother." She looked at her. "Whatever for? Do you distrust Daenerys that much? I know you were never fond of the queen… but…"

"You've been near them in King's Landing. You've seen what that throne can do. It isn't the object but what it represents. LIttelfinger taught me so many lessons, none of them good. But I listened at the War councils and I've listened to the men. When we retook Winterfell we needed more men so I made a deal with the Vale... With Littlefinger. I do not regret it and I made a deal with my sister and brother to protect Jon. They'll need more men." Sansa said firmly.

"To fight Cersei?" Brienne asked.

"To fight whoever they need to so he comes home." Sansa dropped their hands and she looked at her with her clear blue Tully eyes that reminded her so much of her mother.

"What if we win and he stays?" Brienne dragged her gaze to hers.

"If it is by his choice then I will defend it to the death with all the might the north has. I love my brother. If he stays or decides to come home we'll make sure it is a good world. But they may need more men. Arya can hide in shadows, Bran can see the whole of the world through a birds-eye, and I? I can make alliances. If Daenerys Targaryen wins… we will have to discuss the future of the north. The future of the north may come down to if Jon Snow lives. I am just putting the odds in our favor." Sansa handed her a letter that bore the seal of the Starks.

"And sending me south does that?" Brienne looked at the map still on the table and the open letter from the Blackfysh.

"You are a knight of the Seven Kingdoms. You are the person I trust most in the world that I'm not related to. If there is any that can do this task that I ask it is you, and you are the only one I believe that will be able to let my brother know that all I do… is for all of us." Sansa sounded so hold and tired. Even far away from King's Landing Brienne wondered if she felt the pull of it too. The weight of that chair. "I do not want the throne. I just want to stay in the North. I feel like a weir wood tree planted in the heart of my home. I never wish to leave it again and I never want anyone to take it from me."

"What if I need you?" Brienne whispered.

"Then I will take the rest of the men, have my lords hold the castle and ride forth and rage a winter storm the likes none of them have ever seen to bring you and my family back. I am of the north." Sansa touched her face, gentle and kind, and full of a winter storm, "and the North remembers."

* * *

"The last time we met like this was the North. We are not in the North any longer." Daenerys said evenly looking the King Slayer in the eye. She sat proudly as her brother had taught her against the throne of Dragonstone, She was watching as the Kingslayer had been brought to his knees before her. He was unwashed and looked wild. He had been wild, she supposed, in the north.

"I merely am on the way to see my sister." Jaimie grinned.

"Ser Brienne of Tarth vouched for you. When I made way to leave the north you chose to stay in the north and as part of my agreement with the Northmen we left you behind. Why are you here?" She asked.

"Why aren't the other Lords and Ladies in this castle present?" Jaimie asked immediately. "If you wish to try me you might not want to anger them. I hear I'm a valuable thing to your Hand."

Missandei tightened next to her as Grey Worm reached down and bent one of his fingers back. Jaimie Lannister yelped in pain. "I thought not to wake them from their sleep so we could speak frankly." Daenerys smiled.

"You mean to kill me without anyone to bear witness?" Jaimie smirked. She wished she could burn that look off his face.

"No. I know why you killed my father. Ser Barristan Selmy told me why and then your brother told me the rest to save the innocent of Mereen. I listened to them at the time. I listen to them now. I wish not to be my father. I don't want to burn families alive or have the innocents of King's Landing burn. I am Mhysa. I am the Mother of Dragons-." Daenerys began.

"And I was so many things before I became the Kingslayer." Jaimie interrupted her "You can kill me here. Or you'll kill me later. Either way, get on with it."

The door's swung open and Tyrion rushed in. "My Queen." He looked at his brother as he walked in a rush and directly to her throne. He touched her hand. "This is unwise." He whispered. "I won't undermine you again but after the Taryls-"

Daenerys swallowed. She looked over at Jaimie and the promise she just made to a man she wanted to burn. "I will not be my father. Ever again." She whispered back.

"I woke the other lords and ladies they will be here shortly. Regardless of how this plays out you need them here to show you respect their houses and the laws of their lands. Hear them each before making a verdict." Tyrion insisted as he whispered quietly to her.

Daenerys knew he wasn't wrong. She knew it. She felt it in her bones. "You did the right course of action." She said. Not my father. Not my burning feeling inside of her she buried. The Targaryen Madness. She wouldn't be the mad queen. Not ever. She looked at Ser Jaimie. She closed her eyes and imagined when he showed up at Wintefell ready to fight for them. How the Starks stood against her then and how he had proved himself on the battlefield. She had been content knowing

The door opened once more and she saw Jon immediately. Her heart lurched in the way it usually did when she saw him. His clothing was hastily put back on, the way it had been on a ship long ago. She knew he was with no one. The guards told her as much. That he didn't take any comfort from women. She couldn't stop looking at him. The way his lips moved, the way he had kissed her. It felt right. It felt like home. It felt like a red door with a lemon tree. Someone who looked at her as a woman and not a messiah.

Daenerys swallowed it down. There were more important things at hand. "Lords and Ladies I apologize that you weren't woken earlier. I was having a conversation with the Kingslayer."

Princess Arianne's eyes went from her to the Lannister prisoner. She didn't look t him with contempt but with sadness. If there was anyone in these kingdoms who understood how she felt it would be this strange Princess. She turned to Missandei. Missandei gave her a slight nod. "A lively one I expect."

"Quite," Jaimie offered.

"Be quiet. You are not a guest in this home." Daenerys replied. "Thank you, my Lords and Ladies, for joining us. He is on his way to see Cersei Lannister. Perhaps to spill more secrets."

"Maybe I'm on my way to kill her? After all, she betrayed us all. She could still be fucking the moon boy for all I know." He shrugged in his chains.

She could hear her hand of the queen sigh next to her. She wondered if this was what it was like to have a family. Viserys never really had the opportunity she loved and hated her brother in equal measure, perhaps that was what it meant to be family.

"If we are to send him to her," Tyrion spoke softly, "Let us be sure he is one to kill her."

"Do you think he could?" Daenerys asked Tyrion.

"The same way I thought I killed the love of my life. I would not doubt a Lannister when their heart has been shattered. My father ruined the Kingdom. I ruined my life. He ruined himself. If he is willing to change it now… then its in the god's lands. Let as least give him the chance. He adds nothing by going to Cersei. While I may have my differences and I believed her for a while… she has proven nothing but a liar. If he goes it will be his death... If he helps us… it could be an advantage."

"What do you think I should do?" Daenerys asked softly.

"Nothing to be heard in the ears of maids." He replied.

"Exile then?" She spoke louder as she looked to her hand. He nodded grimly.

"Thank you, Ser Jaimie. For your service during the war of the dead. While I wish you could be reunited with your sister she is our adversary. She has killed our men who tried to parlay as I'm sure she would kill you now. I sentence you to exile. You can take the men you wish and you can live in Essos as my family you killed did. Though you will not have the care or the love we did. We were the beggars you know. My brother was the bigger king until my husband killed him."

Jaimie watched her and said nothing.

"You will find your lot against the Dothraki sea as I did." She told him. "Do you have any last words before we send you away?"

"No one knows the red keep as I do." He breathed.

Daenerys stopped. The red keep was a dream to her. "My dragons will know it well enough to take it. Would you not want to keep your life? This is no the north. If I chose to press I could take yours easily enough."

Jaimie looked away from her in his shackles. He looked at who she had gathered. Who she had won.

"Why are you here?" Is what he said instead. "Before all of this, the spies said you chose to be queen in mermen."

"I did. I am queen across the seas and I will be queen here. I gave them their freedom. I broke their bonds and gave them the chance to be their own." Daenerys leaned back proudly. She had liberated the slaver cities.

"And yet here you are still in charge." He breathed against the chains at his next. "You know what your father said when I stabbed him in the back?"

Daenerys' lip twitched she remembered the stories that Tyrion told her, the things that Barristan had made sure she knew.

"The same thing he had been saying for hours, burn them all." Jaimie sneered. She turned to Tyrion who looked aghast.

"Down into the dungeons. I think Volantis may be too kind to you Have you seen the real vicious south? You might have not heard or dreamed of it in your palaces. The one with vines and pain. Your family has killed mine for centuries." Arianne growled.

"What do you think?" Daenerys swallowed down the fire and looked at Jon, Varys, and Tyrion. Their lips tight, no doubt choosing the words to change her mind or work in favor of their families. "He is a Kingsguard that has failed kings and queens alike. He fought for us in the battle for us all, but does that excuse the sins for his?"

Jon's eyes met hers. She had said something similar years ago about the sins of her father, or was it months? All of it began to blend all together. "If you meant to fight beside us," the anger boiled in her as she turned back to the Kingslayer. "Why are you breaking your vows now?"

Jaimie looked at her confused. "Kings landing has a beautiful vista, quite like to see it before she burns it to the ground."

"Take him away." Her nails dug into her hands.

As Jaimie was dragged out of the room. The kingslayer didn't scream, he didn't kill them he merely caught her eyes and for a brief moment, the agony almost ate her alive.

* * *

Tyrion slammed the door to his chamber and then jumped back in surprise as a familiar figure sat at his table.

"You really need to clean up after your wine," Bronn smirked at him and raised the crossbow at him. He would know that crossbow anywhere it had been his fathers. He had it once when he took it and shot him learning the Lannisters really didn't shit gold.

"I suppose I do. Whatever she is paying you I'll pay double." Tyrion reminded him.

"All you cunts keep arguing amongst yourselves." Bronn groaned. "Every time I think I'm free of you golden hair twats something else comes up. Now I can play a good game, but this is getting ridiculous."

"You can always just work for me and let bygones be bygones." Tyrion walked to the table as the man he imagined his friend lowered the crossbow.

"Ya know she wanted me to kill you with this… said it was poetry." Bronn looked at him.

"She would." Tyrion sighed.

"You and that stupid kingslayer," Bronn replied and that surprised Tyrion. He could imagine all the grisly deaths that Cersei had planned for him but never once for his twin. He would need to tell him. "Heard that Dragon Queen is a twat too."

"No, Queen Daenerys is many things but she is never that. She cares about her followers." Tyrion argued.

"Lights those who don't on fire?" Bronn eyed him.

"They chose their fate," Tyrion repeated himself. He felt he was always saying these words. What had he become but a parrot?

"But did they deserve it?" Bronn asked. "I remember she almost killed me and your brother. He would have died if I didn't jump on him afterward."

"We never get the fates we deserve. I killed Shea. Despite what happened if the gods were just I would be dead." Tyrion thought of the woman dead on his father's bed. "I have a favor to ask of you"

"What? And make it better than what your sister is offering." Bronn laughed.

"What is she offering?" Tyrion rolled his eyes.

"High Garden," Bronn said smugly.

"She can't offer that there is an heir still alive." Tyrion swallowed thinking of Samwell in the North. That was a bridge they would have to get to later.

"A Tyrell still stomping about growing like a weed?" Bronn lifted the crossbow. "Or is it the Taryl boy that was at the fucking Night's Watch?"

"Aye, the Taryl boy. If we mean to unit the west again we'll need him." Tyrion pursed his lips. "If you save my brother, I'll pay you double, and do you know what house is currently open that would make you drown in gold and favors?"

"I'm not fucking taking Stormsend or Harrenhal." Bronn raised the bow a bit more. "I could kill you and see if that queen will give me Lannisport since they are probably going to turn your brother into overcooked meat."

"The Twins." Tyrion offered.

"I am not taking a place that would be cursed for breaking its oath," Bronn said immediately.

"Come now, I"ve seen the dead and we both don't believe that." Tyrion sat across from him. "Think of it you would control the toll roads... wouldn't require as much effort as High Garden with just as much gold if not more. You can chose how you wish to tax people who want to travel it. Especially armies."

"Like your Dragon wants to fight more after killing your cunt of a sister." Bronn set the bow on the table. "What else?"

"Once things are settled perhaps we can arrange a marriage with Princess Arianne Martell." Tyrion thought out loud.

"Heard she was a beauty," Bronn licked his lips. "I don't think a Dornish Wife would appreciate being bartered away."

"Honestly, I don't either but we can at least talk of a match if you chose to be lord of the Twins. You deliver perhaps you'll have two regions, gold, and an heir or two under your belt. Better than we arranged before?" Tyrion grinned pulling up his wine glass

"Fine, you two cunts are going to be the death of me." He leaned back in the chair. "Hand me some of that wine you damn asshole."

"He saved me once. This is my turn." Tyrion shrugged and handed over a glass. "I need you to answer me truthfully about one thing..."

"What?" Bronn's eyes met Tyrion's.

"Cersei's belly…" The rest of the words were left unsaid as Bronn took a long sip of his wine and placed it on the table.

Bronn finally responded. "Flat as my cock right now."

"Thank you. Tonight you have to take Jaimie away from here." Tyrion's looked resolutely at his old friend.

"If that Dragon bitch finds out she will kill me and I won't protect you." Bronn pointed out. "Will you tell him?"

"Yes... I know." Tyrion swallowed. "Do what I asked. I think he may be the best of us."

"Worth both of us then?" Bronn grumbled.

"You are-" Tyrion began.

"Don't think I'm not thankful for you or your family. How much you all have given me. Even your cunt of a sister. She gave me so much gold to hunt you down. In my hand. Not on a promise of double. I could strike you down now and get High Garden." Bronn replied. "Although I still would have to sneak down into the prison to get to your brother. Might as well try to save him and get me a big castle."

"I have just the smuggler to help you," Tyrion grinned.

* * *

Daenerys approached the room she had given the Princess of Dorne. There were her two guards at the door as well as one of her own down the hall. "I wish to speak to the Princess." She told the guards.

"Your grace," the bowed without hesitation and moved aside as she reached up and knocked on the door. Her uncertain steps had taken her here.

The door opened with a creak and she saw a dissolved Arianne standing there, one who wasn't wrapped in silks and pomp. She looked like a woman who would have been in her khalasar with her dark hair and eyes that looked at her confused but no do with the wit she had come to be amused by. "Your grace?" Arianne spoke as her tone betrayed her bravado.

"I wish to speak to you, I know it is a late hour." Daenerys nodded at her.

"No, no your grace I am always at your disposal," She opened the door fully to her as Daenerys walked in. The room smelled of spice and memories to her. Daenerys tried not to think of them of Viserys and that red door.

"How may I help you, your grace?" Arianne bowed.

"Our families have both been harmed but the Lannisters. Do you think I was too harsh in my judgment of the Kingslayer?" Daenerys asked.

"The Martells have no love in them for Lannisters, but the Kingslayer is not his father. Had he been the castle and the war would have ended far sooner than it had." Arianne offered. "But I am not a queen, your grace, that is only for you to know."

"I know what is good?" Daenerys looked at her, lost.

"I trust you will always surround yourself with advisors who wish to help you and the realm." Arianne offered.

"And should I marry your brother will you still advise me as you are now?" Daenerys asked, trying to keep her anger from her voice.

"Always. The Dornish don't treat their wives as beasts to ride to create heirs. My father, Sevens rest his soul, and my mother had been long separated. A bit of scandal in my family but he respected her choice to live a life away from him." Arianne smiled.

"Doran didn't kill her then marry again?" Daenerys asked curiously.

"No, your grace, he didn't. He had his three children. Myself. Quentyn. Trystane." Arianne replied. "He just cared not for the complications of it. My safety was paramount to him. Ellaria and even Oberyn thought he was slow to react but he was not worried about himself, but what was to be." Arianne sat down on one of the chairs.

"Is that all we are to them, broodmares?" Daenerys asked looking at the woman from Dorne.

"To the men of the realm north of my home, yes. Not in the south. In the south-" Arianne began.

"Women inherit as much as men." Daenerys sighed, wondering who she would have been if her mother fled to Dorne. If they would have been the bulwark between her family and the usurper. What would Viserys have done if he had grown up around these women?

"You can change it you know," Arianne touched her hand. "You broke the chains of the slaves of Essos. Don't think I didn't hear about the grand deeds of the Mhysa while I was in Tyosh."

"You see further legitimacy of any heirs is-" Daenerys stopped and looked at her, really looked.

"Your grace," Arianne smiled.

Daenerys returned it with the same vigor she had once upon a time in Mereen with a Kraken. "The lords may not like it. It would shake up many of the holds of Westeros."

"It would also shake up holdfasts and villages with women able to inherit the home." Arianne returned. "From small folk to kings across the sea. Just the audacity of it." She chuckled. "They are weak men. It would also secure your claim."

"The smallfolk could revolt, I could be viewed as a radical. Tyrion said I need the support of the lords and the small folk to win Westeros." Daenerys thought amused. "I could win Westeros."

"And then break the wheel," Arianne replied. "You are a dragon, your grace. Be a dragon."

"And Jaimie Lannister?" She asked.

Arianne chewed her lip. "He is a Lannister, but we've both known Lannisters. Tyrion is not his father. He has a kind heart under the drink. The Kingslayer… if what Tyrion said is true." Arianne looked up at her.

"It is." Daenerys breathed. "My father was the mad king. He wanted to burn all of this and all of King's Landing if they came for him. The Kingslayer was correct in his actions to silence him. I would wish if I were to walk the same path as my father those who cared for and protected me would do the same."

"You are not your father. I would not be here if you were. Neither would Varys or Tyrion." Arianne implored.

"You came to swear allegiance. I tried speaking with the Lady of the north on the same terms," Daenerys frowned.

"Has your Hand or Jon spoken of all the North has endured?" Arianne asked.

"She is a woman with power and I know-" Daenerys began.

"This is not my story to tell, your grace." Arianne sighed and held her hand. "And I do not and will never know the full extent of it. Speak to your wolf about it."

"He isn't my-" Daenerys replied.

"I know what a man in love looks like, your grace, if I may be so bold." Arianna sighed. "A marriage between him and I would never work. Even if he was ever willing to acknowledge his lineage. He looks at you as the earth looks at the moon or the sun or the stars. I don't want that looks to the skies for a dragon."

"He doesn't-" Daenerys fought her heart. She could not be gentle. She could not let him take it again. "His heart belongs to the north, and his family."

"He is your family too," Arianne added. "May he did not die for honor the way my knight did. I would be a Queen maker had the Gods allowed it."

"Thank you for your council, Lady Arianne." Daenerys nodded at the woman in front of her. "I feel like your sun will be welcomed in the Capital. Given that you are also the heir apparent for Dorne how do you wish to handle the changes?"

"As my brother and I have always done. Working together. I would require visits to my capital and the Water gardens within reason your grace, as I do not wish to remain not amongst my people. I love them. We are a brave, proud lot. They would like to see their Princess and should situations arrive I would love to show you my home." Arianne smiled at the thought of it, remembering the feeling of the sands and the waters under her feet She remembered playing with her brothers and all the lessons her father taught her.

"When the Kingdom is back under its rightful rule and peace has returned, it would be my pleasure to see Dorne." Daenerys touched her hand, it wasn't as soft as it looked, it was calloused from the fire and the hard work. The dragon may have never toiled in the earth but she worked it all just the same. Arianne remembered her father saying that sometimes for a field to gain fruit it has to be burned first.

"Your brother loved the tower of joy, your grace. He never ventured to Sunspear or the Water Gardens. I would love to take you there." Arianne smiled. "It might remind you of Pentos."

"I grew up there with my brother." Daenerys smiled and thought of Rhaegar. "Let us not kill our brothers or sisters before we have a chance to be a better world."

"You won't kill the Kingslayer then?" Arianne looked at her earnestly.

"I learned hard that vengeance only leads to children crucified and that the ones you expect to earn the vengeance didn't earn it at all." Daenerys sighed. "Revenge is like a wheel. On and on it goes. Until you stop it."

"I want the skull of the Mountain," Arianne said suddenly.

Daenerys looked up to her. "Is that why you are here?"

"Ellaria is dead. I wish nothing but peace for her angered soul… but I miss my aunt. I want Elia avenged. She was kind and she was sweet. And she died before her time. She would have been a good queen to the seven kingdoms. All I ask is to see his dead body and have his head for my mantle. He is old and he should be dead in his time. I just ask that we hurry it up." Arianne thought, "but also so men like him do not have leave to harm your people. He is a brute."

"If I can ensure it happens I will give you what you wish." Daenerys nodded. "Is there anything else you wish? No husband then?"

"Give me that Lannister." Arianne giggled.

"Jaimie?" She looked bewildered.

"Tyrion. If he is open to it. Not now but later. His family owes me an heir or two. I think it would be right if a Martell in Lannister skin sat on that throne in Lannisport." Arianne looked at the sky. "Taking from their family what they wanted the most and seed little vipers everywhere."

"He is one of the smartest men I know, I won't give him away without his leave. He must remain hand of the queen." Daenerys offered.

"He hasn't been doing a good job of it." Arianne retorted.

"I realize I haven't had a full council. Varys has done his best and Jorah and Barristan… but they have only their side of things until they died... Ellaria was full of anger and Yara wasn't included in so many of the seven kingdoms dealings." Daenerys spoke honestly.

"Neither was my father." Arianne offered.

"We need to change that.. I suppose it means leaving the kingslayer alive. He was close to his sister." Daenerys reasoned. "Maybe he means what he says, and when he accomplishes his task we could still exile him to Pentos and Essos. Does that make us better or worse for our fathers? Or the Usurper?"

"My father would look at the long game. The play we haven't seen yet. The people we could be. I worry I am dishonoring him, but I know he would have wanted vengeance for Elia." Arianne explained. "Everything he planned was for that end."

"My brothers are dead. One before I was born and one I was at hand for. I've known so many betrayals and calls for vengeance. Viserys spent so much time whispering about what we do to the Lannisters. And then I was with the Starks and I saw their devotion to each other. It was so unlike anything I had ever known." Daenerys looked at Arianne, her eyes trained very carefully on her. " What would you do for your brother?"

"Ellaria killed Trystane." Arianne looked up to her. Her eyes fighting tears.

"Ellaria died. As far as I'm told in the dungeon in King's Landing. If you are seeking to save her she is already gone." Daenerys said quietly.

Arianne's face shot to hers.

"That was what you were after is it not? I have spiders everywhere." Daenerys sighed. In that Arianne really saw her. Not as the dragon conquering her foes but the girl she actually was.

"Not to save her." Arianne sat beside her.

"Would you leave her in a dungeon to rot? She was an ally to me when I had few." Daenerys said.

"No. I'd give her the poison of hope before I kissed her until her death." Arianne sighed.

"I've ended every enemy I've ever had with fire." Daenerys sat next to her.

"We must be better. Still she killed my father and should we meet I would wish for you to guide me, Your grace. I don't want to be a monster or an adversary. I've spent so much time alone sequestered in Tyosh away from my home. At this, I would just like to be your friend. I think we understand each other on what it means to be so far away from the thing you crave most." Arianne smiled and reached out and touched her hand again.

Daenerys sighed. "I used to dream of a red door and a lemon tree. It was the first place I ever knew. I was born during a storm. Everything in my life has been a signature of that. But here and now… I feel more lost than I did as a child. As a child I had Viserys, then Drogo, then Jorah, and then.."

"Never had time to yourself? One destiny to another, eh? I went from Princess to exile in Tyosh and back to Princess after Ellaria killed my brother. I'm the heir to the south. My brother Quentyn would die before any harm came to me. I do not think you had that luxury." Arianne replied.

"I had Jorah Mormont." She felt the weight in her heart as she had when Drogo died. But there would be no fire for her to climb in. No witch to return him to her. "He did die for me."

"I'm sorry for your loss, your grace." Arianne said softly.

"Your Grace." Daenerys laughed.

"We be but creatures consumed by pain. Women are like that. We are born in pain and we carry it with us always, like the sting of a scorpion or the bite of a dragon until we ourselves birth or die. Women can fight as well as men, despite their lies. My cousins always have. The knight of the laughing tree did." Arianne offered

"Knight of the laughing tree?" Daenerys asked confused.

"Lyanna Stark." Arianne laughed. "How all of this happened was because a girl rode a horse and unseated a lord and Rhaegar fall in love with her."

"So many things happen because a Targaryen fell in love with a stark." Daenerys offered.

"And so many things to come." Arianne smiled.

"How do you know?" Daenerys questioned, her lips pursed.

"The Starks killed the knight of the dawn on our territory to protect the heir to the throne after Aegon and Rhaenys had their heads bashed in. How could we not know?" Ariane replied owing her the truth. "They named him Aegon."

"What will you do now?" Daenerys swallowed all her fears confirmed.

"Do you think I want to take the throne from the rightful ruler?" Arianne laughed into her wine. "Oh, please. Like I said in Dorne women have the right to rule the same as men. Even when they are foolish and think otherwise. When the War is said and done I shall be your Queen Maker. I will lay our troops to your claim and fight anyone who tries to take it. You are my Queen. You are of the rightful blood and name. Lannisters be damned."

"No," Daenerys replied and Arianne moved away.

"Lannisport is part of the seven kingdoms. Cersei Lannister has been nothing but a liar but I would rather see the seven kingdoms see that I did everything I could to avoid bloodshed and rule justly." She stood.

"Your grace," Arianne took her hand and she kissed her ring just the same holding the queen's eyes as she did. Arianne had to wonder if the shiver she felt in her belly traveled into the dragon as she let her leave her room, Daenerys sparing a moment to look back at her with unreadable eyes.

* * *

Davos didn't like this, not for a second since Tyrion Lannister knocked on his door and plopped a bag of gold on his bed. "She'll kill us all." He whispered.

"You smuggled Gendry Waters out of here. I just ask you do it once more." Tyrion shrugged.

Davos grumbled. "Daenerys will never forgive me."

"She can blame me," Tyrion argued.

"She'll kill you." Davos let them into his room the sellsword pushing his way past them as he began rummaging through some of the things that decorated the bedroom.

Tyrion pulled out the nearby chair and looked at Davos, begging him with his eyes. "I'll take the fall for all of this. If she will kill anyone it will be me."

"Lannister, I have no quarrel with you or what you have done to my family." Davos finally retorted. He had wanted to have said something since Winterfell. Had he found the imp alone he may have killed him but now...

"Your family?" Tyrion turned to him.

"I was with Stannis at Blackwater Bay. So was my son." Davos replied. "He died there. In the wildfire."

"I defended my family." Tyrion stood up. "and I mean to save my brother."

"As I would have mine, as you stand against yours. I smuggled you into Kings Landing once and I will smuggle him out again. My alliance is with Jon Snow. He is a good man. Can you say the same of your brother?" Davos replied. "The last time was for the good of all of us. This sounds just like the good for you." I

"No," Tyrion shrugged. "He is an idiot most of the time but he tries to do right by the end of the day."

"Would he kill Cersei to save everyone in King's Landing from war?" Davos had to ask. He had to know. He had followed Stannis. He had followed Snow. He would follow Jon until his last days or he had no need of him.

"I have never seen him happier than when he was with the knight in the north. Not for a single moment with my sister and with whatever they had. He may not be a good man but if it is a sword in the belly of a monster I don't think he'll hesitate." Tyrion said honestly.

"You seem sad." Davos sighed.

"I would never want Jaimie to kill her. I love my brother, and even though she is a monster I love my sister." Tyrion looked around. "Gods do you not have any wine in here?"

"I loved my son. I love my wife. At the end of this, I'd like to go home." Davos replied. "I don't drink much, never good for me before a battle."

"No reward for the Onion Knight who became the hand of a king and the council of a dragon? No castle?" Tyrion looked over at the sellsword with a strange eye.

"I've lived to a ripe old age. I think I'm done for now. I don't want to play in the game of kings and monsters anymore." Davos gave him a small smile. "I wish to be home with my wife."

"And you don't believe in Daenerys Targaryen?" Tyrion sounded almost affronted that after everything she had done for so many people that they couldn't see it.

"I don't think I need to. I think she is surrounded by people who believe in her. It's a lonely place to be." Davos offered. "I've seen that happen before. Stannis was a good man but in the end, he died alone. Say this goes south... say she finds out and says that you and your brother are dragon food."

"I bend to the will of our rightful queen." Tyrion stood firm.

"But here you are asking me to go behind her back to free your brother," Davos replied. "I'll do it. I'm not taking him in the boat."

"I wouldn't worry about that," the Sellsword interrupted. "I'll take the King Slayer the rest of the way."

"And try to talk him out of whatever idiotic plan he has that will no doubt get him killed." Tyrion turned to the sellsword.

"I'll do my best." The man laughed.

* * *

The spider's door was locked as she suspected. Grey Worm and Korako stood behind her as she waited for it to open. Varys looked surprised to see Daenerys. She was still in her outfit from earlier. "Your grace," He bowed politely.

"Have you seen Lord Tyrion?" Daenerys asked immediately.

"I have not spoken to the lord since our last meeting." Varys began looking around for something for her. "I apologize Lord Tyrion ruined the last bit of my wine. Is there anything else I can offer you?"

"I have a favor to ask of you and I'll need your best spiders." Varys looked at her strangely as she walked into his quarters. "The Kingslayer killed my father to protect the people of King's Landing or to save his father's troops. I've heard so many different versions of the tale but all I know is that he died and peace came to the seven kingdoms united under one banner."

"For a while your grace," Varys replied.

"There was the Iron Born rebellion," she ran her fingers alongside his table. "Tyrion is blinded by his love for his family, just as I had once been. You know kings and queens and lords and ladies longer than my hand."

"I do not wish to become-" Varys replied.

"No, you are quite suited to spymaster and you promised to never lie to me." Daenerys sighed. "I want the seven kingdoms to know I did everything to protect them from Cersei Lannister. I need to know what she is saying about me in the capital."

"A foreign whore whose men are as savages as beasts. Who will burn them as they did the Lannister Troops and all the food. That you intended them to starve." Varys said plainly.

"We do not kill the innocent. Cersei Lannister didn't come and fight against the dead. I want them to know she didn't. I want them to have all the stories from the north." Daenerys began.

"Including those about Jon?" Varys asked.

Daenerys swallowed. Wrestling in her heart, "No, not unless he chooses to do so. I want the bravery of those who fought against the long night to reach every ear of women, men, and child who can hear them. You may speak to him and see what he wishes to divulge for his family."

"I believe that is best a question for you, your grace, to ask him. For a while, It will be difficult to get my spider's wrestled away from Qyburn in the capital. I also have another suggestion if you were open to it, your grace." Varys began. "I have been discussing with Lord Tyrion an idea that might make you more appealing to those in the capital. Once word of the deeds in the north are spread I recommend we request a parlay in Duskendale. It is where Aegon first landed."

"And do you wish me to bend the knee to her?" Daenerys turned.

"No, I simply ask you to make one last levy at peace. We request an audience with the lord and lady of Duskendale as well as it is public as a display of gratitude and show of peace." Varys explained.

"What if she kills them all?" Daenerys felt the fear grip her.

"Anything further to the capital may be a death sentence. Cersei wouldn't risk it. If the parlay for a treaty is rebuffed it will be the second time you've opened your hand to her." Varys grinned.

"I think we might have a plan." Daenerys smiled. "We will speak more in the morning. Will you stay as a Spy Master?"

"I do not think so your grace, a witch once told me I would die here." Varys sighed. "I expected it to be in the north."

"A witch told me my dead husband would return to me and a wise man told me that she might not have been a reliable source of information." Daenerys gave him a soft smile. "I hope yours wasn't reliable."

"Your grace," he bowed. She nodded to him as his eyes met hers and she felt a bright fire burning inside her. You aren't like anyone else.

I'm no ordinary woman. My dreams come true. She had screamed at a man-made of spice. Now all she saw was Varys burning. She took her hand away hoping he hadn't known that the fire that awaited him nipped her too.

* * *

Jaimie had become uncomfortably familiar with most of the dungeons of Westeros at this point. He laughed to himself if making the eight should truly be about which prisons you ended up in. He would have Robert beat, and any of his sick, drunk followers. There was a pounding in his head as he grumbled. There were a few unsullied keeping watch as he heard the sounds of someone speaking to them in a foreign tongue and them leaving.

Tyrion, Bronn, and Davos stood before him. "I didn't know it was a party. Would have hired the whole brothel."

"You idiot." Tyrion rolled his eyes. "Did you consider trying to not get caught?"

"Cersei always called me the stupidest Lannister." Jaimie laughed.

"You are going back to her?" Tyrion pleaded "She is going to die unless you can convince her not too."

"When have I been able to convince Cersei of anything?" Jaimie looked at him, the dirt-smudged all around his face. "I'm not like you. I can't convince people to follow me."

"I followed you right enough," Bronn added.

"Please, stop her! For all those people in that city… innocent or otherwise." Tyrion went into the cell and held his hands. "You stopped a mad king before."

"I didn't love him." Jaimie looked at his brother. "I didn't have children with him."

Bronn and Davos quietly slinked back towards the front of the dungeon watching. "You told me you killed the mad king when he wanted to murder the innocent of kings landing."

Jaimie averted his eyes. "I've never cared for the innocent."

"Don't you lie to me now, after all this. You've always cared. You cared for me. You were all I had as a child. I would have died without you. I'll save you here now in the hope that you save yourself." Tyrion yelled at him. "You killed a king to save a kingdom. You rode north to save the innocent. Do not ever say that again or I'll summon that northern knight to knock some sense into you."

"I'm going to Cersei." Jaimie insisted.

"Please don't be lying when you say its to kill her. I could hold many things but I could never stand losing you." Tyrion pleaded. He looked at his brother's face with its broken edges and scares. He traced it to memory.

"Where would I go if not to her?" Jaimie sighed at the affection.

"To somewhere else. A life. You kept your vow. The Stark girls are safe. You saved a kingdom and it cost you all you could be. Please, Jaimie, go back north or just go home." Tyrion begged.

They both swallowed. "I'm cutting your restraints. Bronn and Davos will lead you out of here. I hope Bronn talks to you-"

Jaimie wrapped him in his arms. His one could hand clutching on to his shirt as she held him to you. "I'm glad you lived, brother. I have to do this."

"You don't need to die for her." Tyrion cried.

"Who says I'm dying at all? Maybe I'll get a summer castle in Pentos. My children lay in those crypts. Let me see them one more time." Jaimie begged and Tyrion relented.

He followed Bronn into the dark cave as Davos lead them. They were brought out to a small shore with a small boat and Davos turned to them. "I'll leave you here. Sail out from here and head right there is a ship your brother arranged to take you either to Pentos or as far as the horizon takes you... Or to King's Landing. The choice is yours."

"Fuck, you hear that? We can go live like kings in Pentos. Get us some quality-" Bronn began.

"Did my brother just offer me the world?" Jaimie had to laugh. He thought of the dungeon and the towers what seemed like he did a lifetime ago.

"Aye he did. Now don't waste it." Davos disappeared back down the tunnel he came.

"I wish someone loved me like that."Bronn laughed.

"I had loved a woman like that," Jaimie replied slipping into one side of the boat

"Ugh don't talk about your sister." Bronn scowled.

"No, not her." Jaimie swallowed and began helping him get the boat ready to go.

"I'll tell you to just get better brothels if you can one-up High Garden or the Twins?" Bronn waggled his eyes.

"I will pay you gold just to shut up." Jaimie groaned as they began pushing the boat in the water.

They had rowed past the bay and into the darkness of the shore. The lights twinkling at the castle as they moved further and further away. Jaimie watched them, thinking of his brother, and the hell that might follow him when the dragon queen realized what had happened. How willing they were to die for the other.

"Did your brother tell you?" Bronn asked as he rowed further out towards the ocean. They rowed past the rocks and almost into the clearing.

"Tell me what?" Jaimie asked.

Bronn swallowed. "We'll talk about it when we're safely away."

"Tell me WHAT?" Jaimie demanded.

"You see-" Bronn rowed harder and as they rounded the bay where it met the ocean and they could travel to King's Landing. The two of them stared open-mouthed at the ships that were docked nearby. They hadn't seen the boat yet. "Seven hells," Bronn whispered. "That's the fucking Iron Fleet."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that by Dorne's laws as long as the marriage between Rhaegar and Lyanna is recognized that would technically place Jon on the throne, but also keep in mind that there might be something else going on there. :) You also have to think that Arianne's family did not take kindly to Rhaegar pushing aside his wife for heirs for someone else.
> 
> Yes, Tyrion's line is a reference to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 
> 
> You may also notice that unless I've seen the body decapitated on a pike on my screen they have a chance to still be alive. Honestly, if the show didn't explicitly say that there was no Willias or Garland I would find a way to get their rosey butts in here too.
> 
> Next up? The battle of salt and stone.


	7. of Salt and Smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Iron Fleet helmed by Euron Greyjoy attacks Dragonstone in the dead of night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter will contain violence If I make any spelling mistakes please let me know.

King’s Landing was deathly quiet. Guards stood at every entrance and hidden hall. She had spent her life learning them. Cersei ran her hand along the Iron throne in front of her. She had ceased taking audiences in the castle since the armies of the wolves and dragons began their descent south. She could never be too cautious as she looked at her hard-earned prize. The golden shrouds behind her and a tale of a frog in her ears.

Soft padding of feet behind her alerted Cersei to her companion, her second skin these days as she turned to her Maester. Qyburn looked tired and she wondered if he had been moving behind her back. His robes as dark and kept as its last washing. She wondered how many he had if that is the case. She looked him over, turning her head side to side to evaluate him.

“Is it done, your grace?” Qyburn spoke plainly.

“Do you ever known my hand to stay when it should not?” She turned back to the throne as she grinned, imagining what her father would say at her cleverness. “The Golden company is worth thousands more than his mutes and his monsters. If he comes back I’ll at least have a dragon head or queen to hang above my throne like the Kings of old.”

“Are you sure that is wise? While the Dragon Queen may not be our ally or friend the description of such a thing would be-” Qyburn struggled to find the right word to say, she saw it in the tense of his voice. He was never one to hold back. In this, he feared her reaction.

“That she would be the Robb Stark of the monsters. Her head severed on a body that was never her own. No, my father and I were never so crass. That was all the Frey’s doing, and we must prove above all things we are not the Freys. Their house is empty and dead. Said to be killed by Walder or the Gods themselves. Tell me, Qyburn, what do they say about the Wildfire of Baelor?” Her finger touched the center sword and it drew a blossom of blood. She watched it pool on her index finger with fascination.

“A product of a mad Dragon and a vengeful Tyrell,” Qyburn replied softly. “Terrible shame.”

“A shame indeed.” Cersei sighed, turning to him. Her dress rubbing against the throne. “I lost my son and my dearest daughter in law.” She looked up at nearby Clegane who stood as silent as stone waiting for her command. “I would not hang the dragon by the door. We would give the last dragon queen a proper burial and respect. My father allowed the children and Elia Martell to be brutalized. We will quell this rebellion and take her prisoner. Lock her in the tower.”

“Why is that?” Qyburn looked at her curiously.

“Her family conquered ours. We all bleed for it by the end. Let them know that we have not forgotten but Dragons have no place to rule. She deserves a queen’s death. All the people should see.” Cersei sipped her wine. “I want to show her civility even though she forced my hand. The tower would be a sufficient prison.”

“You want her alive?” Qyburn asked.

“Brink of death if that is what you can deliver. Dead as well. We can spin our webs from there. Varys was quite skilled but,” she touched his shoulder, “he never was a Maester with a Maesters knowledge of Westeros. She will have a burial for a dragon queen so the people know that while we do not bow to Conquerors and Tyrants we acknowledge our history. Have some of my guard and maids go down to the villagers and give them bread and water.”

“Without the supplies from High Garden, I will ere on the side of caution,” Qyburn spoke.

“I know what our stores hold, but should Euron fail and we are given to siege against a dragon having the people on our side as a shield might be the wisest course,” Cersei added. “Stannis would not have succeeded without the fealty of those in Dragonstone.”

“I mean you no ill respect, my queen, but that is not your reputation.” Qyburn swallowed.

“And what do they say of me, my hand?” She asked.

“A queen made of gold but twice as cold. Who holds them in her grip, but holds them safe against a forge in invader and her men who are as savage as the northerners. Who does not bow to wolves and wildlings or dragons? Some call you a queens whore and some… well, you inspire fear my lady. Your reputation has turned cunning, they say it was the death of your children.” Qyburn swallowed.

Cersei looked at the throne. The long swords all burned together. She thought of how she had almost died here years ago had her father not come with the Tyrell army. “Have your birds spread stories of how I mourn for my children and wish to protect them just as I would have for the lost golden shrouds.” Cersei sighed. “That the Tyrells had plotted to burn me in that Sept had I not needed to speak to my son, had he not fallen… and that a princeling is again on its way and the Kraken King-”

“Do you wish for me to call Strickland to your bedchamber tonight?” Qyburn smiled, “it has been some time since you laid with a man.”

“Not tonight, with us striking the first bite the Dragon will be thirsty. We will use her reputation against her. Not the one we are telling, but the truth of it. Entire cities of innocents defended from Slavers.” She cuddled at the absurdity. “As if she did not know the legacy she hailed from. King’s Landing must be on guard. Alert Strickland, have his people work in shifts. Make sure there is no easy access for even a dragon to fly. We must force the beasts to the ground and give the scorpions a chance to sting. I’ve read about how their skin breaks most swords but Jaimie swore that they had harmed the large one.”

“With the improvements to the devices, I daresay we would be able to kill them both. If we can pierce the skin the poisons we have dipped the arrows in will do the trick.” Qyburn implored. “Is there anything else, your grace?”

“Once upon a time you gave me tears. I would wish them again should the castle fall. It hasn’t happened for hundreds of years. My father and brother took the capital without bloodshed and handed it to Robert. Stannis retreated. The castle stood because my father made it. And I will do as well.”Cersei sat upon a throne.

“We received a raven asking for terms of a parlay.” The whisper shot through her.

“What?” She turned to her hand of the queen, she gripped her goblet tight, her nails almost cracking against them.

“They asked us to meet them in Duskendale,” Qyburn explained.

Cersei laughed and it filled the hall. She wondered how long it been since the hall heard anything but death and pleading. “Send a Raven and ask them to meet us at the front gates of Kings Landing.”

“If we wish to remove bloodshed we should consider.” Qyburn frowned. “Although their timing is a bit unfortunate.”

“Given how much time has passed I doubt a raven would reach either Euron or Dragonstone in time. I assume you knew that.” She looked at him. “When did the raven arrive?”

“A few moments ago, your grace. I would have not delayed this knowledge.” Qyburns lip twitched. She smiled all the same.

“And yet you did so. The Raven arrived when the sun was still in the sky,” Her lips quirked up. “Do you wish to play me the way the spider did with Aerys? I am not mad. I will not forget this.”

“I meant no ill, your grace.” He bowed. Cersei looked over at Clegane whose hand had wrapped around his sword. At least he understood who was the master in this game.

“I do not hear voices nor do I wish to burn people as the mad king did. If his daughter is more of the same then we should snuff that fire out with salt and water.” She looked at the blood on her finger. “Do not test me.”

“Your grace, at once. Should we send a raven to Euron’s fleet?” Qyburn asked.

“No, should they accept or should they refuse to any of my terms the Iron Fleet will meet them. We can feign knowledge later.” Cersei cut her hand on one of the swords. “Besides as you said the only way a raven would reach them in time would be victory. Send one anyway with our terms of a parlay. How terrible it was that it wouldn’t be on time.”

“What if it gets back to the Iron Born?” Qyburn ruminated. “That we withheld information and moved ahead with false pretenses?”

“Outside this room who else would know? If your little birds or spiders or whatever your name for your toys is.” She touched his stringy gray hair, sneering. “You’ve seen what we do to our enemies.”

“Then let them try to stop us, by then our plans will be done. With their people divided between their proper King and the woman who stole his islands while he was gone it should not be as much as a battle as it was before.” Cersei looked at her finger as the blood ran down in.

“Should we let them know you refuse? Once the Iron Fleet breeches their gates they will know their answer.” Qyburn’s lip trembled. Cersei scoffed. She had thought of this longer than he had. “But we can-”

“We can win. If it comes at the expense of them it is of no worry of mine. The Greyjoy bitch took any chance of that when she took the islands. If he dies now it is one less thread we have to worry about.” She put her finger in her mouth and tasted the iron of her blood. “I have a child in my belly. And an army at my back built of lions and gold. They know the truth. A Lannister pays their debts.”

“Of course,” he looked at her in a way that unnerved her. Like he could see beyond her words. Beyond what she had claimed. “You were wise to hire the golden company… and the heir to come…”

“A Kraken.” She turned to her maester and hand of the queen.

“Of course your grace.” Qyburn bowed. “But a queen with a child outside of the marriage bed..”

“My marriage to Euron was confirmed by confirmed by a High Septon before my beloved went out to sea to defeat a dragon in our name.” She rested her hand on her belly. “I bought a maester before, I do not see why it would be so difficult to do so again. We wanted to wait for victory but we were madly in love. After the death of my beloved daughter in law, I had hesitation to step into a sept until my mourning period is complete. As long as they proceed to provide stability why should they care?”

“During-”

“I am not Joffrey or Tommen with his precious summer Queen. I’m not Robert with his many tourneys and empty coffers. I am a Lannister. My family has saved them time and time again. Saved us all. Until the north chose to stand against us. They owe me their allegiance, not their love. They will say what they like but they know at the end of the day who rules just as well as a man.” Cersei stood proud, the light of the sun fading against the sky behind her. “And we pay our debts. Make sure our troops located in the capital make a grand show of patrols. Hire the guard during the night to do extra rounds. The city watch has been spoiled long enough. Let them know the real show of safety.”

“The coffers-”

“I am the Queen and the heir to the west as soon as my brothers are properly handled. They will have their gold. Ply them with wine if you must. The night descends and the last war begins.” Cersei moved to the window so she could see her city in front of her. They were going about their lives, as all of them do.

“Are you sure you should have sent them?” Qyburn looked at her. It was curious for the man who had committed so many sins against the gods.

“Yes. Should Euron fall his mutes and monsters will die with him and the rest will know where their loyalties lay. There were already questions after he took in the Greyjoy bitch and when she arrived on the iron islands his fate was sealed. He is a mad man.” Cersei replied. “I have had my fill of madmen. I’ll bear a child on my own terms with Strickland’s help. Or I spend the rest of my days as Queen. Either way, the kingdom is mine. And the rest of my rule will be golden. The smallfolk do not care about stags or lions. My walk taught me that.”

“My queen.” Qyburn bowed.

“Be sure that Ser Gregor stays near me if the dragon ever makes it here.” She swallowed.

“What if Euron wins?” Qyburn looked out at the sea.

“He’ll ride here with the sea at his back but my men at his throat.” Cersei smiled and raised the goblet of lions to wet lips. “My cub will be a lion you see. Their hands will be long and sharp with their coat of gold and red.”

* * *

The sound of her blood riders stirred Daenerys from her fitful sleep. She had been dreaming again of a wolf at a feast, a dragon with three heads, and a brother with a sword at her belly. The words would always whisper into her ears. _Waking the Dragon._ She would never do that. She had to be **more** than that.

A memory of sleep washed over her, one where after she laid with him she rested her head against his breast and listened to the heart of a dead man. It beat the same as her own, stronger in fact. It had lulled her to sleep at the time, an assurance that it beat for her. Daenerys pulled her shift over her naked body. She still boiled hot even if winter had come. She stood as the door swung upon half of her gown falling. “My lady.” Varys looked away at her nakedness. “Ships are approaching. The Iron Fleet.”

“Yara?” She asked hopefully imagining the eyes of the Queen of the Iron Islands.

“No.” Varys looked her in the eye. “Euron.”

Daenerys pulled a fur over her. “How many ships?”

“It was too dark to count and whatever scout that noted us their arrival has gone dark. There are at least three galleys that the Dothraki have seen.” Varys moved aside as she dressed in her clothing. If he was to stab her that would have been the time. She quelled that darkness and paranoia inside her. She was not her father. If he wished to kill her it would be in a meal or with whispers. “There were a few others but the lights went out by the peninsula by the time the ships were noticed. The Martells are assisting the Unsullied and Dothraki to prepare our ships.”

“You did not wake me first?” She spat.

“This was all on our walk to you.” Varys looked at her as she pulled the shift over her body. “I merely am the vessel to inform your grace.”

“And where is my Hand of the Queen?” Daenerys asked.

“He joined us from his drunken stupor.” Varys looked away towards the bay, towards where her enemies were. He didn’t look at her straight.

“Are you sure?” She asked plainly.

Varys turned to look at her, his eyes reflecting on her own she surmised. “I am sure, your grace. He was slurring after a man who had a night of drink.”

“Make sure he gets the water he needs.” She looked out at the bay. “And is Jon on his way to the Dragons?”

“He was to join his men,” Varys replied.

“Have him meet me in the rook with the Dragons. We will pincer them as we did with the dead. Daenerys stated.

“Of course your grace.” Varys bowed.

“And the Northmen?” Daenerys looked at him as Tyrion joined them in the room with Arianne. The dwarf looked rumpled and his eyes wandered but Arianne looked as if she had awakened fresh as a newborn babe.

“Jon is on his way here,” Arianne replied smoothly. “I saw him in the hall he went to wake up the Lord of Storm’s End and Davos.”

“He had informed me that he was to go join the Northmen.” Varys insisted. Interesting, Daenerys noted.

“I wish to join me in the Rookery where our dragons will meet us-“ Daenerys began.

“He came this way with haste.” Arianne grinned and gave her a look that was equal parts interest and a jest. He was not her pet, she wanted to sneer at the other woman. He was her… nephew. She swallowed that thought down.

Daenerys stared at her a bit longer than probably needed. “Thank you.” She tried not to hiss. “The Dragons?”

“Agitated,” Tyrion replied.

“I can imagine,” Varys looked at her. She caught him from the corner of her eye like he was expecting her to destroy everything she had built in a moment. She hated it. Daenerys bit her lip and looked away from him, towards the dark ahead of her as she heard the sure steps of her most loyal companion.

“Recommendation?” She spoke in Valyrian as Grey Worm came up. She could feel their eyes on her. She would always surprise them. They weren’t Barristan and Jorah. They never knew her full power. They have never been with her within the rages and the hopes. She turned to them and smiled at her constant companion and dear friend.

“Pincer would be best. We have the advantage of the night.” He added. “Dragons hit from the sides as our ships approach.”

“They won’t know what hit them,” Davos entered. Jon towing up behind him. The lord of Winterfell looked like he had been having as fitful of sleep as she had. He caught her eye in a moment. She held it. She willed her heart into her eyes. Daenerys hoped he saw how much he meant to her. How much she needed him. Not as a nephew or a lord, but just as him. The man she had met in the castle of Dragonstone.

“I feel its best we keep our ground troops at bay and let the ships and dragons do most of the work.” He broke her gaze and looked at what was before him and then back at his feet.

Gendry Baratheon followed behind them. He had nothing to offer her. He hadn’t taken anything for his own yet. She almost growled at him, at this time he was of no use and would be of no use until they took the Kingdom. He was her hope to heal an old wound. One her father had ripped open. She was not her father.

“Lord Snow,” She said impassively. “We take the Dragons. Davos. Grey Worm. Lady Arianne. I would like you to take your ships and wait until the Dragons have done their initial strike. They came here on the aspect of a surprise to give them the advantage” Daenerys spoke in the common talk. “Do not seek to attack unless their ships burn as torches to guide you.”

“Your grace,” Davos began and looked around those gathered. “No frontal attacks would be recommended. We’ll lose men that way.”

“We know. The blood riders sounded the alarm.” Daenerys said trying to hide her annoyance. “Jon, you will ride Rhaegal and I’ll take Drogon. We attack from the sides. No doubt they will try to-“

“My sister would never send someone this far without another game in a plan.” Tyrion spoke up. Her mouth clenched before she turned to him. “I recommend capture. If she is sending him here now with these pretenses it must be on another guise or she is intending to rid of herself of a problem. Iron Born or not they are walking into a death trap. I want to know why.”

“I’m not a fool.” Daenerys spat, trying to not be her brother. She was a Dragon in ways he could never be. She would not allow her anger to overpower her. “They took our two precious allies with the Iron Born and the Martells-“

“Your grace,” Arianne interrupted. “Perhaps Lord Tyrion speaks true… it would not be wise to issue the same attack that had crippled some of your allies.”

“Then we use the dragons to test their new offenses. A pincer attack still gives us the advantage. They cannot fly. “ Daenerys looked her in the eye.

“Aye, your grace.” Davos brought their attention to him. “As a seaman, and one who lived his life by it… Don’t fly in a straight line towards the ships. If they are here they are here cause Queen Cersei wanted them to be. An object in motion is a hard object to hit.”

“Aye,” Jon added. “I’ll take the left flank, your grace. There are fewer rocks that way. I’ll make myself the easier target.”

“Jon…” She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice. “Lord Snow. Drogon-“

“Drogon is a larger target.” Tyrion slurred his words together. “Lord Snow is correct, having Rhaegal attack from the left where there is a larger ground to cover would be wise. He is the smaller Dragon. While Drogon would hit from the right. He is a larger beast and the mountains will be used as an advantage as you approach the enemy.”

Daenerys looked out into the bay. She saw the light of the fleet approaching. “Very well. Tyrion,” she turned to her Hand. “Do we have any Wildfire?”

“No, your grace. Aerys had it stored inKing’s Landing.” Tyrion responded.

“Do we have anything-“ She looked around as she caught the eye of Davos.

“We have some oil leftover from when Stannis was Lord here What are your intentions, your grace?” Davos asked.

“Tyrion told me of Blackwater Bay and how he had used a-“ Daenerys began.

Tyrion and Davos looked at each other in a way she had never expected. A long look of loss she would ask about later. “It would not have the same effect you are looking for.” Tyrion interrupted. “The dragons would work best… then have the Done ships and what we have left of our Armada hit them head-on.”

“And if I don’t take any of them alive?” She looked at Tyrion.

“We’ll never know what my sister is planning.” Tyrion swallowed. “I thought she planned by her children… but I’m not sure anymore.”

* * *

Tyrion watched her go. She was majestic and unearthly. He thought that about her when they first met. When he first told her about the game. The game beyond the one she had known. She had been what could be called a Tyrant, but she chose instead to be kind. It was then he knew he would follow her into the night. He had to do both himself and Jorah proud. She was always more than both of them could ever hope. He heard rumors about her brother. The viciousness that reminded him of Cersei. Her body remained unmarked but she was still just a person.

He swallowed his fears and turned to his companions. Varys looked at him with reservation. The other two… Grey Worm and Missandei held each other’s hands like it might be the last night of the world. Tyrion remembered a lifetime away when he kissed a woman who was the world to him. He remembered how he held her in his arms. How he loved her so. How she betrayed him to his father. How he found her in his bed.And how he swallowed his anger back down until it was nothing but a memory in the front of a blossom. “We have limited time.” He reminded them.

“Not a joke this time?” Grey Worm replied.

“No.” He looked at them, reminding himself of a hand he kissed in a dungeon and a crypt. “Be safe, Grey Worm.”

“I will. I promised Missandei to see her homeland.” He smiled in a way that Tyrion knew far too well. At this moment his heart ached for him.

“I pray that day comes.” Tyrion nodded and headed towards where he was meant to go.

He could hear the heavy-footed Gendry following them. “But what about me?”

"You stay here,"Tyrion turned to him.

"But I can fight." Gendry lumbered over the hand of the queen.

“Right now you do not have an official claim within the Stormlands, you have no men and nothing except your own arms to offer. You stay here.” Tyrion grumbled. 

“But I am a Lord and you must-“ Gendry began before Tyrion placed his hand on his arm, trying to calm him. 

“At this time you are not. You are that in name only. You bring nothing to the table. You have no men. No offers. You are our Key to the Stormlands and Robert supporters. You need to stay here. Until we claim the throne and until you are officially instated as Lord of the Stormlands you are a pawn. A useful one who can use a hammer. Who has saved me in my time of need. Right now you are more important inside these walls and safe than out there.” Tyrion stared the stronger man down. 

“I could-“ Gendry began.

“You could end me with a stroke of your hand and thus your Lordship and all the things you’ve gained in a short amount of time.” Tyrion stopped. The poor boy looked frustrated and angry. Perhaps a bit of Robert's temper lived on him, but it was weathered with something else. “Stay here, my Lord. This is a game we are playing and the stakes are high."

Gendry’s hand clenched and he watched how he moved. He had temperance that his late brother in law did not. Tyrion nodded at the short winter fell guard. “Make sure his Lordship stays in his room.” He would be a good Lord. He was certain of it.

“Aye, m’lord.” The guard nodded and followed behind the bastard smith. He watched the boy’s jaw clench as he was escorted back into his room. Now wasn’t a time for niceties.

Tyrion quickly navigated his way through the keep towards where the sound of wings began moving. He walked towards the dock, finding Varys waiting for him towards the entrance. “Varys.” Tyrion nodded. “You’ve played this game longer than most. What would Cersei gain by sending the Iron Fleet here in the dead of night against two dragons and an army? Surely she nows Dorne is here now too.”

“Is looking to rid her of a problem.” Varys swallowed. “Which makes this dangerous if she is willing to sacrifice her greatest alley.”

“Do any of the ships fly the flag of the golden company?” Tyrion asked.

“No. She would be wise to keep them and the Lannister troops with her.”

The door of Daenerys’ chamber swung open and she came out in full black regalia. “My queen,” Tyrion ran to her with Varys close behind.

“What? Whatever you say now might delay us further.” She replied shortly. 

“Make a show of might.” Tyrion looked at her, grasping her arm. He looked at Jon behind her. “Take the Dragons to the top of the castle. Make a show of it. Make fire. Do not proceed unless the ships get closer. Give them time to potentially get away.”

“Why should I do that?” Daenerys growled.

“Because if my sister sent him here in the dead of night without any Lannister flags and you can see that from the air… then she means him to die. If he doesn’t stand down..” Tyrion swallowed.

“Dracarys.” They all turned to Missandei. Grey Worm’s hand holding fast to hers. “If they don’t join us, my Queen-”

“They can either join us in the new world or die in their old.” Daenerys nodded.

“Give them that chance to make that choice. Even if I do not think they will take it,” Tyrion cautioned.

Daenerys nodded and then looked over at Arianne. “We must allow them that chance. I know you have more ships around the bay. Will they be safe?”

Tyrion turned to the Dorne princess who shrugged as if this was no matter at all. “I will go to them now. I will wait for a signal before we join the fray.”

“What is the signal?” Tyrion turned.

“Fire.” Daenerys grinned and Tyrion couldn’t help but see the awe and admiration in Jon’s eyes. He was a good man, who had done good things, but he never inspired the way Daenerys did or even Sansa. He drew people to him in a battle and he was a great man. Jon could command and battle. Tyrion knew then that he could never lead. Not in a way that mattered.

“Be safe my queen,” Tyrion touched Dany’s hand. She wrapped her fingers in his. “Remember, if you die the dream is lost. We can break the wheel.”

“I won’t retreat if they attack where I was born,” Daenerys said softly.

“You are more than where you are born, my queen,” Tyrion said as soft as a whisper. “You weren’t just born. You were forged.”

She smiled at him. It was as soft as the girl who asked him advice so long ago in a pyramid in Mereen before she even gave him the hand of the queen. Sometimes he felt like if Barristan had been alive it would have been him in his shoes. Barristan would be a good leader, not a hand. He didn’t play the game as much. Tyrion looked at her and he couldn’t even believe she was real. She wasn’t like her father. There were moments of madness, but his heart… it ached. It wanted to keep her safe. “Be safe.” Was all he could say.

“No one can keep anyone safe until this is all over.” Jon Snow’s voice carried and Daenerys’ face snapped to Jon’s. As if each word was a promise of something he could never understand. Tyrion knew so much of what had gone on between them, even with what Sansa had said. He loved his queen.

“Come back to us,” Tyrion whispered as the two dragon riders walked proudly down the hall. Perhaps the Targaryens brought them all together with their madness.

“They do make quite a formidable pair,” Varys admitted. “He could temper her.”

“Our queen does not need to be tempered.” The two advisors turned to see Missandei starring at the two of them.

Varys swallowed. “Surely, you must admit with the war and winter fell…”

“This place would be swarmed with the dead if not for her.” Missandei stood straight and unyielding.

“A little bird told me once the war is over and the Queen has her throne you would wish to leave her side,” Varys replied drawing Tyrion's attention to him.

“I want to see my family in Nath.” Missandei smiled, “and bring Grey Worm with me. He has never known peace.”

“What if there is peace here?” Tyrion asked. “Surely with your service you would be raised in esteem and given land.”

“I did not follow Daenerys Targaryen because of her birthright or to be raised in station. I followed her because I believe in her. I believe in her when she said I was free to go if I wished and no one would stop me. I am free to go home, and in time I would be free to return if I so chose.” Missandei looked at Varys and then back to Tyrion. “You were in chains a short time… Lord Tyrion.”

“You must forgive our friend,” Varys interrupted. “He has never known what it was like to be a slave even for how short it was.”

“And you have?” Missandei asked.

“It is how he became a eunuch,” Tyrion replied.

“Your obsession with that is concerning, Lord Hand,” he rolled his eyes. “It was a time and I’m glad to never be of that again.”

“Perhaps if you had been with us the Lord Hand might not have made a deal with the masters.” Missandei gave the spider a small smile.

“Perhaps not. I wish you long health and peace Missandei of Nath.”

“But for now I recommend we get out of the way while they prepare to fight against the Iron Fleet. Or get them to join us.”

“Euron never would. He is a mad man. I pray he doesn’t make land. Missandei,” Varys extended his arm. “I suggest we find some of your unsullied and Dothraki to protect us.”

The loud screeching was heard overhead and the flap of the wings of dragons he watched the two of them head towards the safety of the castle. “I’ll join you shortly.”

“Wine.” Varys sighed. “He always has it for a siege.”

* * *

Daenerys stood looking over the bay. She could see the ships heading towards them illuminated by the moonlight had they not been brought to her attention they could have burned her fleet, and destroyed all chance of her goal. They sailed the flag of the Kraken. “Dany,” her attention was brought back to Jon. He looked exhausted.

“Rhaegal will be here shortly.” Daenerys looked up where the green dragon was circling the castle. “Call him to you.”

“Rhaegal!” Jon yelled to the wind.

“Not like that,” she almost smiled to herself. Perhaps his men saw him as superior to her in every way but with the dragons, he was like a child who she could guide. He was a dragon and she wondered how she never noticed before. “How do you call your wolf?”

Jon scrunched his nose. “He just comes.”

“Like that then.” She walked to the bluff as Drogon rose to meet her. The dragon landed next to her and bowed his crown so she could mount him. She easily climbed on his back and soothingly touched him. “We will show them the meaning of fire.”

“Follow me.” The dragon flew up, his wings beating against the sky and the night. Together they flew as one his frame landing on the top of the castle.Her children roared into the night, into the dark and towards the ships. From this height, she could see the ships as they were illuminated by strange arrows in the dark. Perhaps one of her guards had journeyed farther out. Her brows furrowed and the anger bubbled within her. 

Rhaegal roared beside her and she bared her teeth at her son willing him to join Jon at the bluff. Two dragons with two riders would do best for what she had prepared to do.”Fetch him,” she willed at her child. _Bring him to me. _

The green dragon landed in front of Jon and did the same gesture as his brother. The moon shone and the world was clear as the other dragon joined them. Jon was still nervous embracing his heritage as she motioned her head towards him. The man she loved reached out and touched the dragon as Rhaegal lowered his head to allow the northern man to mount him. She watched him with satisfaction. Jon's form was not as confident as hers but he rode well just the same. His blood singing to her son. 

Drogon anticipated what she needed and screeched into the sky as the ships approached. She could see them now as the clouds parted. It wasn't a full fleet, and it surely wasn't the size of the one she arrived with. Under the cover of darkness, a man may seem like an army. "Valahd." She whispered and Drogon lurched forward from the tower, spreading his wings and soaring towards the ships. His brother and Jon followed suit, flying in unison towards the ships.

There was a brush of air near her face, and a sharp kiss of unexpected steel. They were shooting at them with those arrows she thought she burned in High Garden. Another flew towards them and she willed Drogon to move away. Cersei placed the arrows on the ships and ordered them here to kill her children. The fury and blood curled in her stomach as she and Drogon dove to the right of the ships. Nothing would stop them, she would show them what it meant to come after the Queen of Dragons.

Another arrow, and another, and she and Drogon moved as one through the night sky closer and closer to her quarry.

* * *

The night was dark as Drogon's shadow covered the moon. Jon could barely make heads or tails of where the black dragon had dived to. It did not matter as Rhaegal took flight flying after his brother towards the sea. It reminded him of childhood, Jon thought as he breathed in the salted sea air, brother following brother. Although they weren't really, he swallowed clinging to Rhaegal as they approached the ships. Drogon dived for the side as something flew past Rhaegal. The dragons were separated and Rhaegal reacted on instinct. Jon wondered how much in control was he really with this beast. This creature that bore the name of his father. 

Ghost was in a pen with the northern men. Part of Jon could feel him like he always did. He wondered what would happen if he just closed his eyes? Would Jons lip into Wolf's skin? He dreamt sometimes that he did. Telling no one of what it was like as he ran around with his brothers. It wasn't like this with Rhaegal. The dragon chose him and took him as well. "Careful, Rhaegal." He whispered to the dragon, who bellowed in response. 

Daenerys' form was haunched over Drogon, her body was pulled tight like a bowstring ready to snap She was full of rage and Drogon sang with her. Were they one and the same? Why did he not feel the same way as she did when he mounted such a beast? Tormund and others had sung praises of him, but he felt now as he did then. A man in the shadow of greatness. He wasn't meant for this. He wanted to go to the wall and serve with honor. Then he wished to stay in a cave with a girl kissed by fire and now he wishes he could take all the monsters back to be on a boat where the truth was so very far away. Where his blood was only a wolf and an unnamed love, and not a dragon destined to fight the dead. He felt pulled in two directions. The anxiousness of Ghost back at the camp and the rage that was beneath him as the flew after Daenerys.

Rhaegal moved on his mother's instinct as they swooped to the left side while Drogon swooped to the right. He thought he heard Dany scream against the wind as they descended on the fleet. Rhaegal opened his mouth as Drogon did and they lit several ships ablaze. The men are onboard oddly silent as some jump in the ocean as others moved odd objects on the ships. Again, something swooped by as they rose into the night, exchanging sides to cover more ground. 

Jon was sick. Something hit him in the arm. It was sharp and piercing. He turned to his own as Rhaegal faltered beneath him. There was nothing there. He still felt it bleeding. He turned to the wing of Rhaegal and a large arrow stuck out. Rhaegal shrieked in pain and shook it off with the spindle falling towards the water. Another one volleyed towards them, slicing the side of Rhaegal's eye, almost to match his rider's scar. They both screamed. He turned to where he last saw Dany as she rode Drogon. She was behind the ships and slaughtering everyone she came across in fire. Through the head and the pain in his eye he saw something beyond the bay and closing in fast. So many ships that bore the Greyjoy banner, but not the one with the crown. 

Another arrow flung at them and for once Jon felt connected with the dragon. He commanded Rhaegal to move to the left away from it. Rhaegal shrieked and Jon felt it as if it was his own body. He felt his stomach lurch and Rhaegal's pain. 

Then he felt nothing at all from Rhaegal. His wings began to beat harder as it tore the arrow out with its powerful jaw. "We have to help Dany!" Jon screamed to the wind as Rhaegal moved away from the fighting. Everything came to a pause as he smelt it. A smell that had always been with him since childhood. The smell of a Weirwood tree in winter. 

* * *

The last of Bran Stark flew a dragon. The three-eyed Raven and Bran could feel it. The heat of its blood. The weight of its wings. The weight of the world on it's back as they took control. It wasn't like with the ravens. A million wings getting to where they needed to be. No, this was flying as each wing pulsed with power. Rhaegal bucked against him at first but they warged in just the same. It wasn't more complicated than taking control of a human, the Raven noted. An arrow sliced the wing and they did not feel pain the way Jon must-have. He had never known what he was. The others should have been told and should have been trained from Rickon to Robb.

It was too late now and the dead are none the wiser.

Rhaegal flew back towards the castle as what they knew would occur would. A bolt through its right-wing and another skimming its chest. The monster of a man at the helm of the last one. Bran didn't allow the dragon to feel the extent of the pain or Rhaegal would have moved into the sea killing Jon. The ships had realized that Rhaegal was wounded and began firing at them with their crude weapons. He remembered the lessons of his father and the things that mattered. There was a woman holding his hand back at the Weirdwood tree in Winterfell. Bran had not died in that cave, _not yet, _the small voice whispered to him. The Raven. 

Bran would be dying now. He opened his eyes slightly to see Meera and Sansa starring at him with fear in their eyes. "You are so cold," Sansa said wrapping another blanket around him. She had been like this since he arrived, always the caretaker even when no one noticed. She had a good heart and would serve them all well. A swell of pride filmed him and he would have smiled the way that Bran would. They were two in one and it was harder to keep themselves separated. 

The Raven had wished that it had let the boy a moment with his family, the guilt-filled both the body of the monster they flew and the heart of the human body miles and miles away. It was a tethered rope between them and the beast with each moment fading. Bran who had heard stories of dragons and what they could do smiled and they both wondered if the beast did as well. 

In the Godswood in Winterfell he felt the weight of a hand clasping the human body.

"I'm flying a dragon." The boy who was Brandon Stark whispered, his voice strained. Bran saw the face of his sister and Meera come into view for a moment as the Raven drove a dragon towards the ships.

"Bran," Meera replied and held his hand tighter.

"He'll be safe, Sansa." He strained against the pull. The one Bran felt here and the one that meant everything. "I p-promise." 

"Brandon Stark," Sansa grasped his other hand and held it to her mouth, kissing his pale knuckles. He wished he could tell her all the stories he had come to know. She would love them. He smiled as she continued, "Don't you leave us."

"Don't you dare." Meera held tight and he turned back to the brown-eyed woman who had led him so far and was thanked so little. 

He could have loved her. He could have been a lord and her his lady. Bran smiled at her. "Thank you," he held her hand as tightly as he could. "For.... for everything."

"You don't do that. You come back here. Promise me." Meera screamed.

"I can't. The Raven saved the last of me... for this. I chose this." He held Meera's hand tighter. "I'm sorry about Jojen."

"Please don't go." Meera cried.

"I'm proud of you." Bran looked at Sansa. "keep him safe. I won't be me much longer."

"I will." Sansa pledged.

"Meera," he gasped against the strain. The beat of the beast and the song of ravens filled his head and called him back to where he needed to be. There was so much left to say.

Then he was back in Dragon's Bay, and there was screaming. _I'm done now boy, _The raven whispered, _my job in this world is done. I did this at your behest and bargain on that night with the king. The great war is finished._

_And all that remains is what I must do,_ Bran replied, _Thank you for your lessons. I will never forget them._

Blood Raven that was released himself and he felt the control the mentor had ebbed away. It was his turn now, his turn to fly and be what they needed. Then he was back in the dragon and his body hurt. It felt like fire and pain and he controlled it. He could hear Jon screaming in his ear as he took over again. Bran urged the dragon to the head to the shore. It was the best outcome the Raven had taught him. Of all the possibilities of a future, this was the second most pivotal moment. He was Bran no more, but something more.

Bran smelled the fur of summer, the winds of winter, and he dreamed of Spring as an arrow flew past his dragon body. He urged the dragon to turn back more towards the beaches of Dragonstone and he made his move. 

* * *

An arrow struck Rhaegal and it hit him in his breast barely missing his heart. Rhaegal screamed into the night as they descended fast into the ocean. Jon grasped to his scales as the wind wisped around him. He held tight as he saw Drogon and Dany take out more ships. The world and the sky falling to nothing as they descending. A dragon might be the death of him he thought as they plummetted into the ocean.

The water surrounded him as Rhaegal fell further. Jon tried to reach for his claws, his entirety and Rhaegal refused. At that moment he understood more than anyone else could have... when the feeling he was left was that he wanted his mother. The smell of blue roses filled his nostrils the same way Rhaegal could smell Dany. The dragon was not dead yet but if Jon didn't find the surface he would be. He clawed his way to the surface, losing bits of armor that held him down. Every time he could spare a moment he took another piece off. He gasped as he broke the surface. The air filling his lungs.

He looked around the rest of what was near him. He couldn't see Rhaegal yet but knew he was alive. He could feel Ghost clawing at his cage desperate to find Jon. How had he ignored this all his life? 

Something rose beside him. It was a dragon. Rhaegal's face mere feet from his. It looked like the dragon was dead. His eyes black and gone. "No.," he said into the sea. This was something Dany would never forgive him, even if she was worried he would take everything from her. If it was his fault Rhaegal died... then there is no world he wanted to be in. This was his dragon. HIS- and he stopped. Jon felt something slip out of the back of his mind. It fluttered like it had feathers and the eyes of the beast in front of him opened. It wasn't white but it was whole and it was in pain.

"Get to the shore," he whispered as he tried to will Rhaegal to safety.

Instead, the dragon brushed it's nose against him and nipped his clothing. The water fell from him as Rhaegal lifted him from his cloak. It wadded towards the show and dropped him onto his back. The creature looked at the battle and Jon stopped. He saw them and he thought of Theon. The Greyjoy fleet. He could tell Yara was with them. There was a Greyjoy sigil not crowned but merged with the Targaryen. A squid pledging its life to the Dragon as he could hear the screams of the fleets behind him.

Rhaegal cooed at him and for once he felt the same. It wasn't a battle anymore. It wasn't anything anymore. He was Rhaegal's and Rhaegal's was his. Jon touched the firm neck and held fast as Rhaegal reached the shore collapsing on the sand. The dragon released him from his grasp onto the ground and he ran to examine the wounds. There was an arrow sticking out of the creature's chest. The wound wasn't as deep and he was exhausted. Rhaegal opened his eyes and watched him as Jon removed the remaining bits of metal and his woolen cloak, throwing it to the ground to allow him to move freely. Jon clasped the large weapon in Rhaegal's side and yanked with all his might. The arrow gave way and Rhaegal whimpered in pain as Jon fell to the ground. 

His entire body ached as he fought to try to stand again... dragging his cold wet cloak off the ground and placing it over the wound to try to stop the blood flow. Rhaegal watched him trying to hold still as the darkness he was fighting took him and the last thing he saw was dragon fire over the bay as the sound of wolves howled in the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I disappeared for a bit. This chapter ended up having to be split for length because I adore you guys and 20k words for one chapter is too many words. The next chapter will have character death and an NSFW bit. Thank you for reading this take of GoT. Slow burn for ships. But I'm going to burn an actual fleet first :P


End file.
